Downlink measurement method and communication apparatus

Abstract

Embodiments of the present application provide a downlink measurement method and a communication apparatus. The method comprises: a user equipment determining a first downlink carrier from a set of camped downlink carriers, and when cross-carrier downlink measurement needs to be performed, performing downlink measurement on a downlink carrier to be measured; and during cross-carrier downlink measurement, suspending downlink communication on the first downlink carrier, and maintaining downlink communication on a second downlink carrier. Therefore, the user equipment can perform scheduling and transmission with a network device by means of the uninterrupted second downlink carrier, thereby improving the communication efficiency.

Description

A downlink measurement method and a communication device

[0001] The present application claims priority to the Chinese patent application No. 202411295378.9, filed on September 13, 2024, and entitled "A downlink measurement method and a communication device", the content of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. TECHNICAL FIELD

[0002] The present application relates to the technical field of wireless communication, and in particular to a downlink measurement method and a communication device. BACKGROUND

[0003] In the field of wireless communication, a network device and a user equipment (UE) perform downlink communication through a downlink carrier (DL CC). In order to understand the channel condition of the DL CC of a neighboring sector so as to facilitate mobility management, it is necessary to switch the frequency point to perform cross-carrier downlink measurement on the DL CC of the neighboring sector.

[0004] At present, when a UE is registered in a network, the network device configures a measurement interval for periodic measurement. When the UE needs to perform cross-carrier downlink measurement, the UE can perform measurement on the DL CC to be measured within the measurement interval. When performing cross-carrier downlink measurement, the UE autonomously decides to switch the capability of a certain camped DL CC (a currently working DL CC) to the DL CC to be measured, so as to perform downlink measurement on the DL CC to be measured, thereby understanding the channel condition of the DL CC to be measured. During this period, the communication between the UE and the network device on all DL CCs is interrupted.

[0005] Since the downlink communication on all DL CCs between the network device and the UE is interrupted during cross-carrier downlink measurement, the data transmission efficiency between the network device and the UE during cross-carrier downlink measurement is reduced. SUMMARY

[0006] The present application provides a downlink measurement method and a communication device for improving communication efficiency.

[0007] In a first aspect, the present application provides a downlink measurement method, which is executed by a terminal device, or by a component (for example, a processor, a chip, or a chip system, etc.) of the terminal device. Taking a user equipment as an example, the user equipment determines a first downlink carrier from a set of camped downlink carriers, and performs cross-carrier downlink measurement on a downlink carrier to be measured. When the user equipment performs cross-carrier downlink measurement, the downlink communication on the first downlink carrier is suspended, and the downlink communication on a second downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers is maintained.

[0008] Optionally, the user equipment can switch a downlink receiving channel of the first downlink carrier to the to-be-measured downlink carrier to perform the cross-carrier downlink measurement. Optionally, the user equipment performing the cross-carrier downlink measurement can be understood as the user equipment performing the cross-carrier downlink measurement, or the user equipment performing the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier. It can be understood that when the user equipment performs the cross-carrier downlink measurement, the cross-carrier downlink measurement time can include the time of performing measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier, or the cross-carrier downlink measurement time can include the time of performing measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier and the switching time of the downlink receiving channel before and after the measurement time. Optionally, the downlink receiving channel can refer to a downlink radio frequency channel or a downlink baseband channel, or a downlink receiving capability. Optionally, suspending the downlink communication on the first downlink carrier includes stopping, pausing or interrupting the downlink communication on the first downlink carrier. Optionally, maintaining the downlink communication on the second downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers can be understood as not affecting the downlink communication on the second downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers.

[0009] Optionally, the downlink communication can refer to receiving and / or processing one or more of downlink control, downlink data, downlink reference signal. Optionally, the downlink reference signal can include one or more of channel state information-reference signal (CSI-RS), tracking reference signal (TRS), phase tracking reference signal (PT-RS), demodulation reference signal (DMRS), positioning reference signal (PRS), primary synchronization signal (PSS), secondary synchronization signal (SSS), synchronization signal and physical broadcast channel block (SSB). Optionally, the first downlink carrier and the second downlink carrier both belong to the set of camped carriers, that is, both are camped downlink carriers (downlink carriers currently working or activated by the user equipment).

[0010] In the present application, the user equipment can determine the first downlink carrier during cross-carrier downlink measurement based on the agreed manner with the network equipment, so that the network equipment and the terminal equipment can align the understanding of the first downlink carrier switched for measurement, thereby suspending the downlink communication with the network equipment on the first downlink carrier for measurement and keeping the downlink communication with the network equipment on the second downlink carrier. Therefore, the network equipment can schedule and transmit to the user equipment through the uninterrupted second downlink carrier, achieving the technical effect that the network equipment and the user equipment can still communicate normally when cross-carrier downlink measurement is performed, thereby improving the communication efficiency.

[0011] In a possible implementation, the user equipment determining the first downlink carrier from the set of camped downlink carriers includes the user equipment determining the first downlink carrier based on the first information.

[0012] Optionally, the user equipment determines the switching time between each camped downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers and the downlink carrier to be measured, or determines the switching time between any two downlink carriers in the set of first downlink carriers based on the first information. It can be understood that the first information is used to determine the switching time required for each downlink carrier in the set of first downlink carriers to switch to other downlink carriers in the set of first downlink carriers, the set of first downlink carriers including the set of camped downlink carriers and / or the set of downlink carriers to be measured. And / or, the first information can also be used to determine the switching time required for each frequency band in the set of first frequency bands to switch to other frequency bands in the set of first frequency bands, or in other words, the first information is used to determine the switching time required for each downlink carrier in each frequency band in the set of first frequency bands to switch to the downlink carrier in other frequency bands in the set of first frequency bands. And / or, the first information can also be used to determine the switching time required for each downlink carrier in each frequency band in the set of first frequency bands to switch to other downlink carriers in the frequency band. Wherein, the downlink carriers in the set of camped downlink carriers and / or the set of downlink carriers to be measured are located in part or all of the frequency bands in the set of first frequency bands, and the set of first frequency bands includes the frequency bands in which the downlink carriers in the set of first downlink carriers are located.

[0013] Optionally, the first information can also be used to determine the switching time required for each downlink carrier supported by the user equipment to switch to other downlink carriers in the supported downlink carriers. At this time, the downlink carriers in the set of first downlink carriers are part or all of the downlink carriers supported by the user equipment.

[0014] Optionally, the first information can also be used to determine the switching time required for the downlink carrier on each frequency band supported by the user equipment to switch to the downlink carrier on other frequency bands in the supported frequency bands. Wherein, the frequency bands in which the downlink carriers in the set of first downlink carriers are located are part or all of the frequency bands supported by the user equipment.

[0015] Optionally, the first information can also be used to determine a switching time required for each downlink carrier in a same frequency band of each of the frequency bands supported by the user equipment to switch to other downlink carriers in the frequency band. The frequency band in which the downlink carriers in the first set of downlink carriers are located is part or all of the frequency bands supported by the user equipment. It can be understood that the first downlink carrier is the downlink carrier in the camping downlink carrier set that requires the shortest switching time to switch to the to-be-measured downlink carrier.

[0016] In this embodiment, when the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier, based on the switching time in the first information, the downlink carrier requiring the shortest switching time can be selected as the first downlink carrier, or the downlink carrier located on the frequency band requiring the shortest switching time can be selected as the first downlink carrier, so as to reduce the required time of cross-carrier downlink measurement as much as possible, and reduce the influence on the downlink communication between the network equipment and the user equipment during the cross-carrier downlink measurement. In this way, the network equipment and the terminal equipment can align the understanding of the switched downlink carrier, so as to ensure that the communication on the second downlink carrier is not affected, and improve the communication performance.

[0017] Optionally, the first information can also be used to determine a priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first set of downlink carriers, or a priority of other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier in the first set of downlink carriers. The downlink carrier combination is a combination of any two downlink carriers in the first set of downlink carriers.

[0018] Optionally, the first information can also be used to determine a priority of a downlink carrier combination between different frequency bands in each frequency band combination in the first set of frequency bands, or a priority of other downlink carriers in a frequency band corresponding to a downlink carrier in each frequency band in each frequency band combination. The downlink carriers in the camping downlink carrier set and / or the to-be-measured downlink carrier set are located on part or all of the frequency bands in the first set of frequency bands.

[0019] Optionally, the first information can also be used to determine the priority of each downlink carrier combination within the same frequency band of each frequency band in the first frequency band set, or the priority of each downlink carrier corresponding to other downlink carriers within the same frequency band of each frequency band in the first frequency band set, wherein the downlink carriers in the camping downlink carrier set and / or the to-be-measured downlink carrier set are located in part or all of the frequency bands in the first frequency band set. It can be understood that the priority of each downlink carrier combination within the same frequency band of each frequency band in the first frequency band set can be the same, or the priority of each downlink carrier corresponding to other downlink carriers within the same frequency band of each frequency band in the first frequency band set can be the same, in which case the same priority does not need to be indicated separately. Optionally, the first frequency band set includes the frequency band in which the downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set is located. Optionally, the first downlink carrier set includes the camping downlink carrier set and / or the to-be-measured downlink carrier set.

[0020] Optionally, when the first information is used to determine the priority of the downlink carrier combination, the first downlink carrier is the camping downlink carrier in the downlink carrier combination containing the camping downlink carrier with the highest priority, and the to-be-measured downlink carrier and the first downlink carrier form a downlink carrier combination. Optionally, the highest priority means that the priority of the first downlink carrier is the highest, or the switching priority is the highest. Optionally, the first downlink carrier can also be the camping downlink carrier in the downlink carrier combination containing the camping downlink carrier with the lowest priority. Optionally, the lowest priority means the lowest priority of maintaining communication.

[0021] Optionally, when the first information is used to determine the priority of each downlink carrier corresponding to other downlink carriers, the first downlink carrier is the camping downlink carrier with the highest priority in the other downlink carriers corresponding to the to-be-measured downlink carrier, and the first downlink carrier set includes the to-be-measured downlink carrier and the camping downlink carrier set. Optionally, the highest priority means that the priority of the first downlink carrier is the highest, or the switching priority is the highest. Optionally, the first downlink carrier can also be the camping downlink carrier with the lowest priority in the other downlink carriers corresponding to the to-be-measured downlink carrier. Optionally, the lowest priority means the lowest priority of maintaining communication.

[0022] Optionally, the first information can be reported together with the capability information of the user equipment when the user equipment accesses the network, or can be reported separately.

[0023] In a possible implementation, the user equipment also sends the first information to the network device.

[0024] In the embodiment, in the case that the user equipment decides which downlink receiving channel of the camping downlink carrier to switch, the first information is further used for the network equipment to determine the first downlink carrier from the camping downlink carrier set, so as to align the user equipment and the network equipment, and thus the network equipment can align with the user equipment on which camping downlink carrier the downlink receiving channel is switched to the to-be-measured downlink carrier, so as to avoid resource waste caused by the network equipment still performing resource scheduling on the camping downlink carrier due to the network equipment not knowing which downlink receiving channel of the camping downlink carrier is switched away.

[0025] In a possible implementation, the user equipment can further receive second information from the network equipment, and determine the first downlink carrier from the camping downlink carrier set according to the second information. It can be understood that the embodiment is applicable to the case that the network equipment decides how to determine the first downlink carrier.

[0026] In the embodiment, in the case that the network equipment decides how to determine the first downlink carrier, the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier according to the second information of the network equipment, which is that the network equipment decides how to select which downlink receiving channel of the camping downlink carrier to switch. The user equipment determines the first downlink carrier according to the first information of the user equipment, which is that the user equipment decides which downlink receiving channel of the camping downlink carrier to switch. Whether the network equipment decides or the user equipment decides, the alignment can be achieved by sending information to the other party.

[0027] In a possible implementation, the second information includes network configuration information, the network configuration information indicating a priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first downlink carrier set; or, the network configuration information indicating a priority of other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set. It can be understood that the user equipment selects a downlink carrier with the highest priority from the multiple camping downlink carriers as the first downlink carrier according to the priority indicated by the network configuration information.

[0028] In a possible implementation, when the network configuration information indicates the priority of other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set, the first downlink carrier is a camping downlink carrier with the highest priority among the other downlink carriers corresponding to the to-be-measured downlink carrier, and the first downlink carrier set includes the to-be-measured downlink carrier and the camping downlink carrier set. Optionally, the highest priority means the highest priority of being determined as the first downlink carrier, or the highest priority of switching. Optionally, the first downlink carrier can also be a camping downlink carrier with the lowest priority among the other downlink carriers corresponding to the to-be-measured downlink carrier. Optionally, the lowest priority means the lowest priority of keeping communication.

[0029] In a possible implementation, when the network configuration information indicates the priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first downlink carrier set, the first downlink carrier is the camped downlink carrier in the downlink carrier combination with the highest priority containing the camped downlink carrier, the to-be-measured downlink carrier and the first downlink carrier form a downlink carrier combination, and the first downlink carrier set includes the to-be-measured downlink carrier and the camped downlink carrier set. Optionally, the highest priority means that the first downlink carrier has the highest priority, or the handover priority is the highest. Optionally, the first downlink carrier can also be the camped downlink carrier in the downlink carrier combination with the lowest priority containing the camped downlink carrier. Optionally, the lowest priority means the lowest priority of maintaining communication.

[0030] Optionally, the network configuration information can be determined based on first information. It can be understood that the priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first downlink carrier set or the priority of other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set can be configured according to the handover time indicated in the first information. Optionally, the handover time can be the handover time required for each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set to switch to other downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set, or the handover time required for each frequency band in the first frequency band set to switch to other frequency bands in the first frequency band set.

[0031] In a possible implementation, the second information includes first indication information, and the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier according to the first indication information. The indication information directly indicates the first downlink carrier.

[0032] Optionally, the indication information is carried in medium access control control element (MAC CE) signaling or downlink control information (DCI) signaling. Of course, the indication information can also be carried in other signaling or separate signaling.

[0033] Optionally, when the cross-carrier downlink measurement performed by the user equipment on the downlink carrier to be measured is a semi-static measurement or an aperiodic measurement, or the CSI-RS corresponding to the cross-carrier downlink measurement performed by the user equipment on the downlink carrier to be measured is a semi-static CSI-RS or an aperiodic CSI-RS, or the measurement report corresponding to the cross-carrier downlink measurement performed by the user equipment on the downlink carrier to be measured is a semi-static measurement report or an aperiodic measurement report, the user equipment can determine the first downlink carrier according to the indication information. Optionally, the first indication information is carried in signaling for triggering the semi-static measurement or the aperiodic measurement, or triggering the semi-static CSI-RS or the aperiodic CSI-RS, or triggering the semi-static measurement report or the aperiodic measurement report, or signaling for indicating the camping downlink carrier or the camping downlink carrier switching. It can be understood that, in addition to the periodic measurement, the network equipment can also configure the semi-static or aperiodic measurement when performing the configuration, and the network equipment can also indicate the semi-static CSI-RS or the aperiodic CSI-RS by sending the MAC CE signaling or the DCI signaling, or indicate the user equipment to perform the semi-static reporting of the measurement report or the aperiodic reporting of the measurement report by sending the signaling. Then, the indication information can be sent to the user equipment together in the signaling, and the user equipment can determine the first downlink carrier according to the indication information.

[0034] In a possible implementation, the second information further includes second indication information, and the second indication information indicates one of the multiple configurations. In the case that the network configuration information sent by the network equipment to the user equipment indicates the multiple configurations, the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier according to the configuration indicated by the network configuration information and the second indication information. The network configuration information indicates the multiple configurations, and each configuration includes at least one carrier combination or a corresponding other downlink carrier of each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set; and the second indication information indicates one of the multiple configurations. Optionally, the second indication information is carried in signaling for indicating the camping downlink carrier or the camping downlink carrier switching.

[0035] In a possible implementation, the network equipment and the user equipment can directly determine the first downlink carrier according to one or more preset rules. Through this implementation, the alignment is achieved without additional signaling, thereby reducing the signaling overhead.

[0036] In a possible implementation, the first downlink carrier is determined based on historical measurement results, and the historical measurement results include measurement results of the camping downlink carriers in the camping downlink carrier set. It can be understood that the first downlink carrier is determined according to the channel conditions of the camping downlink carriers indicated by the measurement results.

[0037] In a possible implementation, the first downlink carrier is the downlink carrier with the worst measurement result in the set of camped downlink carriers. It can be understood that when there are multiple camped downlink carriers, the camped downlink carrier with the worst channel condition indicated by the measurement result is determined as the first downlink carrier.

[0038] In this embodiment, since the first downlink carrier needs to interrupt communication during the cross-carrier downlink measurement, compared with determining the camped downlink carrier with better channel condition as the first downlink carrier, determining the camped downlink carrier with the worst channel condition as the first downlink carrier has less impact on the communication between the network device and the user equipment, and can preferentially ensure that the communication on the camped downlink carrier with better channel condition proceeds normally, so as to achieve better communication performance.

[0039] In a possible implementation, the first downlink carrier is determined based on a timing advance group (TAG) in which the to-be-measured downlink carrier is located.

[0040] In a possible implementation, the first downlink carrier is the camped downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers that is in the same TAG as the to-be-measured downlink carrier. It can be understood that the camped downlink carriers in the same TAG have the same timing, which can enable the user equipment to perform the cross-carrier downlink measurement at an exact time domain position, avoid continuously searching for the timing of the to-be-measured downlink carrier, and improve the measurement efficiency.

[0041] In a possible implementation, the first downlink carrier is the non-occupied camped downlink carrier or the non-idle camped downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers.

[0042] In this embodiment, the non-occupied camped downlink carrier refers to the camped DLCC without scheduled transmission, or the non-occupied camped downlink carrier refers to the camped downlink carrier with an occupation rate less than or equal to a set threshold or the lowest occupation rate. The first downlink carrier is the non-occupied camped downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers, which can prevent the downlink carrier with more usage for transmission from being switched during the cross-carrier downlink measurement, and avoid affecting the transmission performance.

[0043] The non-idle camped downlink carrier refers to the camped downlink carrier with a busy rate greater than or equal to a preset threshold or the highest busy rate, or the non-idle camped downlink carrier refers to the camped downlink carrier with an idle rate less than or equal to a preset threshold or the lowest idle rate. The non-idle camped downlink carrier with a higher busy rate indicates that the resources of the non-idle camped downlink carrier are more seriously occupied by other user equipment, and the user equipment no longer occupies the resources on the non-idle camped downlink carrier with a higher busy rate.

[0044] In a possible implementation, the first downlink carrier is a camping downlink carrier where the signaling indicating camping downlink carrier or indicating camping downlink carrier switching or triggering cross-carrier downlink measurement is located.

[0045] In a possible implementation, the first downlink carrier is a non-anchor downlink carrier or a secondary downlink carrier in the camping downlink carrier set. It can be understood that the secondary downlink carrier refers to a downlink carrier corresponding to a secondary cell, or a secondary downlink carrier.

[0046] In the embodiment, the camping downlink carriers of the user equipment can be divided into primary downlink carriers and secondary downlink carriers according to the functions to be performed, or can be divided into anchor downlink carriers and non-anchor downlink carriers. Among them, the primary downlink carrier or the anchor downlink carrier needs to perform more functions, and needs to perform functions other than load, such as synchronization function. And because the first downlink carrier needs to suspend communication during cross-carrier downlink measurement, compared with determining the primary downlink carrier or the anchor downlink carrier as the first downlink carrier, determining the secondary downlink carrier or the non-anchor downlink carrier which needs to perform less functions as the first downlink carrier will have less impact on the communication between the network equipment and the user equipment, and can preferentially ensure that the communication on the camping downlink carrier which needs to perform more functions is normally performed, so as to reduce the impact on the communication performance.

[0047] In a possible implementation, the user equipment sends first capability information to the network equipment, and the first capability information indicates that the user equipment can support suspending downlink communication on the first downlink carrier and maintaining downlink communication on a second downlink carrier in the camping downlink carrier set when performing cross-carrier downlink measurement. It can be understood that the user equipment will inform the network equipment of the capability that the user equipment can support in advance, so that the network equipment can perform downlink communication with the user equipment based on the first capability information.

[0048] In a possible implementation, the user equipment sends second capability information to the network equipment, and the second capability information indicates that the user equipment supports that the number of downlink carriers configured by the network equipment to the user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of downlink carriers that the user equipment can support. It can be understood that the number of downlink carriers that the user equipment can support refers to the number of downlink carrier aggregation that the user equipment can support, or refers to the number of downlink carriers that the user equipment can support parallel downlink communication.

[0049] In the embodiment, if the user equipment supports the number of downlink carriers configured by the network equipment to the user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of downlink carriers in the downlink carrier set, the first downlink carrier set can include the camping downlink carrier set and the non-camping downlink carrier set, and the to-be-measured downlink carrier set belongs to the non-camping downlink carrier set. The user equipment can inform the network equipment of the capability supported by the user equipment in advance, so that the network equipment can communicate with the user equipment based on the second capability information. Based on the second capability information, the user equipment can flexibly switch between the downlink carriers configured by the network equipment to the user equipment, so as to improve the utilization rate of the configured downlink carriers.

[0050] In a possible implementation, the user equipment sends third capability information to the network equipment, and the third capability information indicates that the number of downlink carriers supported by the user equipment is less than or equal to the number of uplink carriers that can be supported by the user equipment.

[0051] In a possible implementation, the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier includes that the user equipment performs the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier based on measurement information configured or indicated by the network equipment, and the measurement information includes a first measurement interval, and the first measurement interval indicates that the user equipment performs the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier corresponding to the user equipment in the first measurement interval. Optionally, the first measurement interval is based on the timing of the to-be-measured downlink carrier.

[0052] In the embodiment, the measurement interval of each downlink carrier is configured respectively. Therefore, when the to-be-measured downlink carrier is determined, the user equipment can perform the cross-carrier downlink measurement in the first measurement interval configured for the to-be-measured downlink carrier. In this way, the measurement can be more flexible.

[0053] In a possible implementation, the measurement interval further includes a second measurement interval. In the second measurement interval, the user equipment performs downlink measurement on each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set. The downlink measurement on the camping downlink carrier is the in-carrier downlink measurement, and the downlink measurement on the non-camping downlink carrier is the cross-carrier downlink measurement. It can be understood that the second measurement interval means that the in-carrier downlink measurement and the cross-carrier downlink measurement are performed in the unified second measurement interval. It can be understood that each downlink carrier performs downlink measurement in turn according to a certain rule or order in the second measurement interval.

[0054] In a possible implementation, the measurement information further includes a cross-carrier channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) or a cross-carrier channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resource. The cross-carrier CSI-RS resource is used for the user equipment to perform cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier. Here, the cross-carrier downlink measurement is the downlink measurement on the cross-carrier CSI-RS resource, and the in-carrier downlink measurement is the downlink measurement on the in-carrier CSI-RS resource. It can also be understood that the cross-carrier downlink measurement is the measurement on the cross-carrier CSI-RS on the non-camped downlink carrier, and the in-carrier downlink measurement is the measurement on the in-carrier CSI-RS on the camped downlink carrier.

[0055] Optionally, for the same downlink carrier, the cross-carrier CSI-RS and the in-carrier CSI-RS can be the same. That is, for the same downlink carrier, the measured CSI-RS is determined by the network device based on the same configuration, regardless of the in-carrier downlink measurement or the cross-carrier downlink measurement. For example, the measured CSI-RS is configured based on the same RRC parameter.

[0056] Optionally, the cross-carrier CSI-RS and the in-carrier CSI-RS can be configured separately. It can be understood that the cross-carrier CSI-RS is configured independently of the in-carrier CSI-RS. It can be understood that for each downlink carrier in the first set of downlink carriers, the in-carrier CSI-RS and the cross-carrier CSI-RS can be configured. Here, the in-carrier CSI-RS is used for CSI-RS measurement on a downlink carrier when the downlink carrier is a camped downlink carrier, and the cross-carrier CSI-RS is used for CSI-RS measurement on a downlink carrier when the downlink carrier is a non-camped downlink carrier. Optionally, the cross-carrier CSI-RS refers to the CSI-RS configured for cross-carrier downlink measurement, or the actually measured CSI-RS when performing cross-carrier downlink measurement. In this way, the user equipment has more flexibility when measuring.

[0057] Optionally, the cross-carrier CSI-RS can also be determined according to the in-carrier CSI-RS configured for the to-be-measured downlink carrier to perform in-carrier measurement and the first interval. Alternatively, the cross-carrier CSI-RS can also be determined according to the in-carrier CSI-RS configured for the to-be-measured downlink carrier to perform in-carrier measurement and the timer. Through this implementation, the timing of the first interval or the timer is set to avoid the user equipment from performing carrier switching too frequently, and to reduce the impact of frequent carrier switching on the user equipment transmission performance.

[0058] In a second aspect, the present application provides another downlink measurement method, which can be performed by a network device, or an apparatus capable of supporting the network device to implement the function (e.g., a chip system, a hardware circuit, a software module, or a hardware circuit plus a software module), which can be installed in the network device or used in conjunction with the network device. Taking the network device as an example, the method comprises: determining, by the network device, a first downlink carrier from a set of camped downlink carriers of a user equipment. When the user equipment performs cross-carrier downlink measurement on a to-be-measured downlink carrier, the network device suspends downlink communication on the first downlink carrier, and maintains downlink communication on a second downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers.

[0059] In the embodiments of the present application, the network device can determine the first downlink carrier based on an agreed manner with the network device during cross-carrier downlink measurement, so that the network device and the user equipment can align the understanding of the first downlink carrier switched for measurement, thereby suspending the downlink communication with the network device on the first downlink carrier for measurement, and maintaining the downlink communication with the user equipment on the second downlink carrier. Therefore, the network device can schedule and transmit to the user equipment through the uninterrupted second downlink carrier, achieving the technical effect that the user equipment and the network device can still communicate normally during downlink measurement. The first downlink carrier and the second downlink carrier both belong to the set of camped carriers, i.e., both are camped downlink carriers (downlink carriers currently working or activated).

[0060] Optionally, the cross-carrier downlink measurement performed by the user equipment can be understood as the time during which the user equipment performs cross-carrier downlink measurement, or the time during which the user equipment performs cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier. Understandably, when the user equipment performs cross-carrier downlink measurement, the cross-carrier downlink measurement time can include the time for measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier, or the cross-carrier downlink measurement time can include the time for measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier and the switching time of the downlink receiving channel before and after the measurement time. Optionally, the downlink receiving channel can refer to a downlink radio frequency channel, a downlink baseband channel, or a downlink receiving capability. Optionally, suspending the downlink communication on the first downlink carrier includes stopping, pausing, or interrupting the downlink communication on the first downlink carrier. Optionally, maintaining the downlink communication on the second downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers can be understood as not affecting the downlink communication on the second downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers.

[0061] Optionally, the downlink communication can refer to receiving and / or processing one or more of downlink control, downlink data, and downlink reference signal. Optionally, the downlink reference signal can include one or more of CSI-RS, TRS, PT-RS, DMRS, PRS, PSS, SSS, and SSB. Optionally, the first downlink carrier and the second downlink carrier both belong to a set of camping carriers, i.e., both are camping downlink carriers (downlink carriers currently operated by the user equipment or activated downlink carriers).

[0062] In a possible implementation, the network device determines the second information, and the second information includes network configuration information. The network configuration information indicates a priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first set of downlink carriers, where the downlink carrier combination is a combination of any two downlink carriers in the first set of downlink carriers. Alternatively, the network configuration information indicates a priority of other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier in the first set of downlink carriers. It can be understood that the network device selects, as the first downlink carrier, a downlink carrier with the highest priority from the plurality of camping downlink carriers according to the priority indicated by the network configuration information.

[0063] In the embodiment, the network device determines the second information, which is determined by the network device to determine how to determine the first downlink carrier. The network device determines the first downlink carrier according to the first information of the user equipment, which is determined by the user equipment to determine which downlink receiving channel of the camping downlink carrier to switch. Whether it is determined by the network device or the user equipment, it is aligned by sending information to the other party.

[0064] In a possible implementation, when the network configuration information indicates the priority of other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier in the first set of downlink carriers, the first downlink carrier is a camping downlink carrier with the highest priority among the other downlink carriers corresponding to the to-be-measured downlink carrier, and the first set of downlink carriers includes the to-be-measured downlink carrier and a set of camping downlink carriers. Optionally, the highest priority refers to the highest priority of the first downlink carrier, or the highest priority of switching. Optionally, the first downlink carrier can also be a camping downlink carrier in a downlink carrier combination with the lowest priority including the camping downlink carrier where the to-be-measured downlink carrier is located. Optionally, the lowest priority refers to the lowest priority of maintaining communication.

[0065] In a possible implementation, when the network configuration information indicates the priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first downlink carrier set, the first downlink carrier is the camped downlink carrier in the downlink carrier combination with the highest priority in which the camped downlink carrier is included, and the to-be-measured downlink carrier and the first downlink carrier form a downlink carrier combination. Optionally, the first downlink carrier can also be the camped downlink carrier with the lowest priority in other downlink carriers corresponding to the to-be-measured downlink carrier. Optionally, the lowest priority refers to the lowest priority of maintaining communication.

[0066] In a possible implementation, the network device can further receive first information from the user equipment, and determine the first downlink carrier from the camped downlink carrier set according to the first information. It can be understood that the present implementation is applicable to the case where the user equipment decides how to determine the first downlink carrier.

[0067] Optionally, the first information is used to determine the switching time required for each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set to switch to other downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set, the first downlink carrier set including the camped downlink carrier set and / or the to-be-measured downlink carrier set. In addition, the first information can also be used to determine the switching time required for each frequency band in the first frequency band set to switch to other frequency bands in the first frequency band set, or in other words, the first information is used to determine the switching time required for the downlink carrier in each frequency band in the first frequency band set to switch to the downlink carrier in other frequency bands in the first frequency band set, and / or the first information can also be used to determine the switching time required for each downlink carrier in each frequency band in the first frequency band set to switch to other downlink carriers in the frequency band. The downlink carriers in the camped downlink carrier set and / or the to-be-measured downlink carrier set are located in part or all of the frequency bands in the first frequency band set, and the first frequency band set includes the frequency bands in which the downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set are located.

[0068] Optionally, the first information can also be used to determine the priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first downlink carrier set, and / or can also be used to determine the priority of other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set. In addition, the first information can also be used to determine the priority of the downlink carrier combination between different frequency bands in each frequency band combination in the first frequency band set, or the priority of the downlink carrier in other frequency bands corresponding to the downlink carrier in each frequency band in the first frequency band set. The downlink carriers in the camped downlink carrier set and / or the to-be-measured downlink carrier set are located in part or all of the frequency bands in the first frequency band set.

[0069] Optionally, the first information can also be used to determine the priority of each downlink carrier combination within the same frequency band of each frequency band in the first frequency band set, or the priority of other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier within the same frequency band of each frequency band in the first frequency band set, wherein the downlink carriers in the camping downlink carrier set and / or the to-be-measured downlink carrier set are located in part or all of the frequency bands in the first frequency band set. It can be understood that the priority of each downlink carrier combination within the same frequency band of each frequency band in the first frequency band set can be the same, or the priority of other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier within the same frequency band of each frequency band in the first frequency band set can be the same, in which case the same priority does not need to be indicated separately. Optionally, the first frequency band set includes the frequency band in which the downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set are located. Optionally, the first downlink carrier set includes the camping downlink carrier set and / or the to-be-measured downlink carrier set.

[0070] Optionally, the network configuration information can be determined based on the first information of the user equipment. The user equipment can report its capability information to the network equipment, at which time the first information can be reported. It can be understood that the priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first downlink carrier set indicated by the network configuration information or the priority of other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set can be configured according to the switching time indicated in the first information. Optionally, the switching time can be the switching time required for each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set to switch to other downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set, or the switching time required for each frequency band in the first frequency band set to switch to other frequency bands in the first frequency band set.

[0071] In a possible implementation, the network equipment also sends second information to the user equipment, and the second information includes the network configuration information. That is, the second information is used by the user equipment to determine the first downlink carrier from the camping downlink carrier set, so as to realize the alignment of the user equipment and the network equipment, so that the network equipment can align with the user equipment on which downlink receiving channel of which camping downlink carrier to switch to the to-be-measured downlink carrier, avoiding resource waste caused by the network equipment still performing resource scheduling on the camping downlink carrier due to not knowing which downlink receiving channel of which camping downlink carrier is switched away.

[0072] In a possible implementation, the second information further includes first indication information. That is, the network equipment can send the first indication information to the user equipment, so that the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier according to the first indication information, wherein the first indication information directly indicates the first downlink carrier. Optionally, the indication information is carried in MAC CE signaling or DCI signaling. Of course, the indication information can also be carried in other signaling or separate signaling.

[0073] Optionally, when the network device configures the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier as a semi-static measurement or an aperiodic measurement, or configures the CSI-RS for the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier as a semi-static CSI-RS or an aperiodic CSI-RS, or configures the measurement report corresponding to the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier as a semi-static report or an aperiodic report, the network device can send the first indication information to the user equipment. Optionally, the first indication information is carried in signaling for triggering the semi-static measurement or the aperiodic measurement, or triggering the semi-static CSI-RS or the aperiodic CSI-RS, or triggering the semi-static measurement report or the aperiodic measurement report, or signaling for indicating the camping downlink carrier or the camping downlink carrier switching. It can be understood that, when the network device performs the configuration, the network device can send the MAC CE signaling or the DCI signaling to indicate the semi-static CSI-RS or the aperiodic CSI-RS, or send the signaling to indicate the user equipment to perform the semi-static reporting of the measurement report or the aperiodic reporting of the measurement report. Then, the indication information can be sent to the user equipment together in the signaling, and the user equipment can determine the first downlink carrier according to the indication information.

[0074] In a possible implementation, the second information further includes second indication information, and the second indication information indicates one of the at least one configuration. The user equipment can determine the first downlink carrier according to the network configuration information and the configuration indicated by the second indication information. The network configuration information indicates the at least one configuration, and each configuration includes at least one carrier combination or a corresponding other downlink carrier of each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set. The second indication information indicates one of the at least one configuration. Optionally, the second indication information is carried in signaling for indicating the camping downlink carrier or the camping downlink carrier switching.

[0075] In a possible implementation, the network device and the user equipment can directly determine the first downlink carrier according to one or more preset rules in a communication protocol. Through this implementation, the alignment is achieved without additional signaling, thereby reducing signaling overhead.

[0076] In a possible implementation, the first downlink carrier is determined based on historical measurement results, and the historical measurement results include measurement results of the camping downlink carriers in the camping downlink carrier set. It can be understood that the first downlink carrier is determined according to channel conditions of the camping downlink carriers indicated by the measurement results.

[0077] In a possible implementation, the first downlink carrier is the camping downlink carrier with the worst measurement result in the camping downlink carrier set. It can be understood that, when there are multiple camping downlink carriers, the camping downlink carrier with the worst channel condition indicated by the measurement result is determined as the first downlink carrier.

[0078] In the embodiment, since the first downlink carrier needs to interrupt communication during cross-carrier downlink measurement, compared with determining the downlink carrier with better channel condition as the first downlink carrier, determining the downlink carrier with the worst channel condition as the first downlink carrier has less impact on communication between the network device and the user equipment, and can preferentially ensure that communication on the downlink carrier with better channel condition proceeds normally, so as to achieve better communication performance.

[0079] In a possible implementation, the first downlink carrier is determined based on a timing advance group (TAG) in which the to-be-measured downlink carrier is located.

[0080] In a possible implementation, the first downlink carrier is a downlink carrier in the set of downlink carriers that is in the same TAG as the to-be-measured downlink carrier. It can be understood that the downlink carriers in the same TAG have the same timing, so that the user equipment can perform downlink measurement at an exact time domain position, avoiding continuous searching for the timing of the to-be-measured downlink carrier, and improving measurement efficiency.

[0081] In a possible implementation, the first downlink carrier is a non-occupied downlink carrier or a non-idle downlink carrier in the set of downlink carriers.

[0082] In the embodiment, the non-occupied downlink carrier refers to a downlink carrier without scheduled transmission, or the non-occupied downlink carrier refers to a downlink carrier with an occupation rate less than or equal to a set threshold or with the lowest occupation rate. The first downlink carrier is a non-occupied downlink carrier in the set of downlink carriers, which can prevent the downlink carrier with more usage for transmission from being switched during cross-carrier downlink measurement, and avoid affecting the transmission performance.

[0083] The non-idle downlink carrier refers to a downlink carrier with a busy rate greater than or equal to a preset threshold or with the highest busy rate, or the non-idle downlink carrier refers to a downlink carrier with an idle rate less than or equal to a preset threshold or with the lowest idle rate. The non-idle downlink carrier with a higher busy rate indicates that the resources of the non-idle downlink carrier are more seriously occupied by other user equipment, and the user equipment no longer occupies the resources on the non-idle downlink carrier with a higher busy rate.

[0084] In a possible implementation, the first downlink carrier is a downlink carrier indicated by signaling, or a downlink carrier indicated by downlink carrier switching, or a downlink carrier on which cross-carrier downlink measurement is triggered.

[0085] In the embodiment, when the user equipment supports the number of downlink carriers configured by the network equipment to the user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of downlink carriers in the downlink carrier set, the user equipment can dynamically switch between the downlink carriers configured by the network.

[0086] In a possible implementation, the first downlink carrier is a non-anchor downlink carrier or a secondary cell downlink carrier in the downlink carrier set. It can be understood that the secondary cell downlink carrier refers to a downlink carrier corresponding to a secondary cell, or a secondary downlink carrier.

[0087] In the embodiment, the resident downlink carriers of the user equipment can be divided into primary cell downlink carriers and secondary cell downlink carriers according to the functions to be performed, or can be divided into anchor downlink carriers and non-anchor downlink carriers. Among them, the primary cell downlink carrier or the anchor downlink carrier needs to perform more functions, and needs to perform functions other than load, such as synchronization function. And because the first downlink carrier needs to interrupt communication during cross-carrier downlink measurement, compared with determining the primary cell downlink carrier or the anchor downlink carrier as the first downlink carrier, determining the secondary cell downlink carrier or the non-anchor downlink carrier which needs to perform less functions as the first downlink carrier will have less impact on the communication between the network equipment and the user equipment, and can preferentially ensure that the communication on the resident downlink carrier which needs to perform more functions is normally performed, so as to reduce the impact on the communication performance.

[0088] In a possible implementation, the network equipment receives the first capability information of the user equipment. The user equipment sends the first capability information to the network equipment when it enters the network, and the first capability information indicates that the user equipment can support suspending the downlink communication on the first downlink carrier and maintaining the downlink communication on the second downlink carrier in the resident downlink carrier set when performing cross-carrier downlink measurement. It can be understood that the user equipment will inform the network equipment of the capability that the user equipment can support in advance, so that the network equipment can perform downlink communication with the user equipment based on the first capability information.

[0089] In a possible implementation, the network equipment receives the second capability information of the user equipment. The user equipment sends the second capability information to the network equipment when it enters the network, and the second capability information indicates that the user equipment supports that the number of downlink carriers configured by the network equipment to the user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of downlink carriers that the user equipment can support. It can be understood that the number of downlink carriers that the user equipment can support refers to the number of downlink carriers that the user equipment can support for aggregation, or refers to the number of downlink carriers that the user equipment can support for parallel downlink communication.

[0090] In the embodiment, if the user equipment supports the number of downlink carriers configured by the network equipment to the user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of downlink carriers in the downlink carrier set, the first downlink carrier set can include the camping downlink carrier set and the non-camping downlink carrier set, and the to-be-measured downlink carrier set belongs to the non-camping downlink carrier set. The user equipment can inform the network equipment of the capability supported by the user equipment in advance, so that the network equipment can communicate with the user equipment based on the second capability information. Based on the second capability information, the user equipment can flexibly switch between the downlink carriers configured by the network equipment to the user equipment, so as to improve the utilization rate of the configured downlink carriers.

[0091] In a possible implementation, the user equipment sends third capability information to the network equipment, and the third capability information indicates that the number of downlink carriers supported by the user equipment is less than or equal to the number of uplink carriers that can be supported by the user equipment.

[0092] In a possible implementation, the network equipment sends measurement information to the user equipment. The measurement information includes a first measurement interval, and the first measurement interval indicates that the user equipment performs cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier corresponding to the user equipment in the first measurement interval. Optionally, the first measurement interval is based on the timing of the to-be-measured downlink carrier.

[0093] In the embodiment, the network equipment configures the measurement interval for each downlink carrier respectively. Therefore, when the to-be-measured downlink carrier is determined, the user equipment can perform cross-carrier downlink measurement in the first measurement interval configured for the to-be-measured downlink carrier. In this way, the measurement is more flexible.

[0094] In a possible implementation, the measurement interval further includes a second measurement interval, and the network equipment configures a unified measurement interval, i.e., the second measurement interval, for each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set when configuring the measurement interval. In the second measurement interval, the user equipment performs downlink measurement on each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set. The measurement on the camping downlink carrier is the downlink measurement on the carrier, and the downlink measurement on the non-camping downlink carrier is the cross-carrier downlink measurement. It can be understood that the second measurement interval indicates that the downlink measurement on the carrier and the cross-carrier downlink measurement are performed in the unified second measurement interval. It can be understood that each downlink carrier performs downlink measurement in turn according to a certain rule or order in the second measurement interval.

[0095] In a possible implementation, the measurement information further includes a cross-carrier channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) or a cross-carrier channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resource. The cross-carrier CSI-RS resource is used for the user equipment to perform cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier. Here, the cross-carrier downlink measurement is the downlink measurement on the cross-carrier CSI-RS resource, and the in-carrier downlink measurement is the downlink measurement on the in-carrier CSI-RS. It can also be understood that the cross-carrier downlink measurement is the measurement on the cross-carrier CSI-RS on the non-camped downlink carrier, and the in-carrier downlink measurement is the measurement on the in-carrier CSI-RS on the camped downlink carrier.

[0096] Optionally, for the same downlink carrier, the cross-carrier CSI-RS and the in-carrier CSI-RS can be the same. That is, for the same downlink carrier, the measured CSI-RS is determined by the network device based on the same configuration, regardless of the in-carrier downlink measurement or the cross-carrier downlink measurement. For example, the measured CSI-RS is configured based on the same RRC parameter.

[0097] Optionally, the cross-carrier CSI-RS and the in-carrier CSI-RS can be configured separately. It can be understood that the cross-carrier CSI-RS is configured independently of the in-carrier CSI-RS. It can be understood that for each downlink carrier in the first set of downlink carriers, the in-carrier CSI-RS and the cross-carrier CSI-RS can be configured. Here, the in-carrier CSI-RS is used for CSI-RS measurement on a downlink carrier when the downlink carrier is a camped downlink carrier, and the cross-carrier CSI-RS is used for CSI-RS measurement on a downlink carrier when the downlink carrier is a non-camped downlink carrier. Optionally, the cross-carrier CSI-RS refers to the CSI-RS configured for cross-carrier downlink measurement, or the actually measured CSI-RS when performing cross-carrier downlink measurement. In this way, the user equipment has more flexibility when measuring.

[0098] Optionally, the cross-carrier CSI-RS can also be determined according to the in-carrier CSI-RS configured for the to-be-measured downlink carrier to perform in-carrier measurement and the first interval. Alternatively, the cross-carrier CSI-RS can also be determined according to the in-carrier CSI-RS configured for the to-be-measured downlink carrier to perform in-carrier measurement and the timer. Through this implementation, the timing of the first interval or the timer is set to avoid the user equipment from performing carrier switching too frequently, and to reduce the impact of frequent carrier switching on the user equipment transmission performance.

[0099] In a third aspect, the present application provides a communication apparatus, which comprises a processor configured to implement the method in any of the first aspect.

[0100] In a fourth aspect, the present application provides a communication apparatus, comprising a unit or module for performing the method described in any of the embodiments of the second aspect.

[0101] In a fifth aspect, the present application provides a communication apparatus, comprising a processor configured to perform the method described in any of the embodiments of the first aspect.

[0102] In a sixth aspect, the present application provides a communication apparatus, comprising a processor configured to perform the method described in any of the embodiments of the second aspect.

[0103] In a seventh aspect, the embodiments of the present application provide a computer program product containing instructions which, when executed on a computer, cause the computer to perform the method described in any of the embodiments of the first aspect or the second aspect.

[0104] In an eighth aspect, the embodiments of the present application provide a computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions which, when executed on a computer, cause the computer to perform the method described in any of the embodiments of the first aspect or the second aspect.

[0105] In a ninth aspect, the embodiments of the present application provide a communication system, comprising a first apparatus configured to perform the method described in any of the embodiments of the first aspect, and a second apparatus configured to perform the method described in any of the embodiments of the second aspect. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0106] FIG. 1 is an example diagram of a system architecture of a downlink measurement method according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0107] FIG. 2 is another example diagram of a system architecture of a downlink measurement method according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0108] FIG. 3 is another example diagram of a system architecture of a downlink measurement method according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0109] FIG. 4 is another example diagram of a system architecture of a downlink measurement method according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0110] FIG. 5 is an example diagram of an application scenario of a downlink measurement method according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0111] FIG. 6 is another example diagram of an application scenario of a downlink measurement method according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0112] FIG. 7 is a flowchart of a downlink measurement method according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0113] FIG. 8 is an example diagram of measurement information configuration according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0114] FIG. 9 is another example diagram of measurement information configuration in embodiments of the present application;

[0115] FIG. 10 is another example diagram of measurement information configuration in embodiments of the present application;

[0116] FIG. 11 is one form of priority in embodiments of the present application;

[0117] FIG. 12 is another form of priority in embodiments of the present application;

[0118] FIG. 13 is another form of priority in embodiments of the present application;

[0119] FIG. 14 is another flowchart of a downlink measurement method provided by embodiments of the present application;

[0120] FIG. 15 is another flowchart of a downlink measurement method provided by embodiments of the present application;

[0121] FIG. 16 is a structural schematic diagram of a communication apparatus provided by embodiments of the present application;

[0122] FIG. 17 is another structural schematic diagram of a communication apparatus provided by embodiments of the present application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0123] The technical solutions in embodiments of the present application will be described clearly and completely below with reference to the drawings in embodiments of the present application. Obviously, the described embodiments are only some of the embodiments of the present application, not all the embodiments of the present application.

[0124] The terms "first", "second", "third", "fourth" and the like (if any) in the description and claims of the present application and the above drawings are used to distinguish similar objects, not necessarily to describe a specific order or sequence. It should be understood that the terms used in this way can be interchanged, so that the embodiments described herein can be implemented in an order other than that illustrated or described herein. In addition, the terms "include" and "have" and any variations thereof are intended to cover non-exclusive inclusion, for example, a process, method, system, product or device that includes a series of steps or units does not necessarily have to be limited to those steps or units clearly listed, but can include other steps or units that are not clearly listed or inherent to these processes, methods, products or devices.

[0125] It should be understood that the term "and / or" in this document merely describes an associated relationship for associated objects, and indicates that there can be three relationships, for example, A and / or B can represent the following three cases: A exists alone, A and B exist simultaneously, and B exists alone, where A and B can be single or multiple. In addition, the character " / " in this document generally represents an "or" relationship between the associated objects. In addition, "at least one of the following" or the like in this document is used to represent any combination of the listed items; for example, at least one of A, B, and (or) C can represent the following six cases: A exists alone, B exists alone, C exists alone, A and B exist simultaneously, B and C exist simultaneously, and A and C exist simultaneously, where A, B, and C can be single or multiple.

[0126] For ease of understanding, the communication system and application scenarios to which the downlink measurement method proposed in this application is applicable will be introduced first as follows:

[0127] First, the communication system and devices to which this application is applicable will be introduced as follows:

[0128] The technical solutions provided in this application can be applied to various communication systems, such as a 5th generation (5G) or new radio (NR) system, a long term evolution (LTE) system, an LTE frequency division duplex (FDD) system, an LTE time division duplex (TDD) system, a wireless local area network (WLAN) system, a satellite communication system, and a future communication system; or the technical solutions provided in this application can also be applied to a fusion system of the foregoing multiple systems, etc. In addition, the technical solutions provided in this application can also be applied to device to device (D2D) communication, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, machine to machine (M2M) communication, machine type communication (MTC), an internet of things (IoT) communication system, or other communication systems.

[0129] In addition, considering the Uu (UTRAN-to-UE) air interface transmission, the two parties of the wireless communication include a network device and a user communication device; considering the SL air interface transmission, the transceiver of the wireless communication is a user communication device. For different communication systems, the network device involved in the embodiments of the present application can be a conventional macro base station (eNB) in a conventional universal mobile communication system (UMTS) and a long term evolution (LTE) wireless communication system; in a heterogeneous network (HetNet) scenario, it can be a micro base station eNB, in a distributed base station scenario, it can be a baseband processing unit (BBU) and a radio frequency unit (RRU), in a cloud radio access network (CRAN) scenario, it can be a baseband pool BBU pool and a radio frequency unit RRU, and in a future wireless communication system, it can be a gNB. In the embodiments of the present application, the user equipment can be a chip, a vehicle-mounted communication module or other embedded communication module, or can be a user handheld communication device, including a mobile phone, a tablet computer and the like.

[0130] In the foregoing communication system, one network element can send a signal to another network element or receive a signal from another network element. The foregoing signal can include information, signaling, or data, etc. The foregoing network element can also be replaced by an entity, a network entity, a device, a communication device, a communication module, a node, a communication node, etc. The present disclosure is described by taking the network element as an example. For example, the communication system can include at least one terminal device and at least one network device. The network device can send a downlink signal to the terminal device, and / or the terminal device can send an uplink signal to the network device. It can be understood that the terminal device in the present application can be replaced by a first network element, and the network device can be replaced by a second network element, and the two perform the corresponding downlink measurement method in the present disclosure.

[0131] For example, FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a communication system applicable to the downlink measurement method according to the embodiments of the present application. As shown in FIG. 1, the communication system can include at least one network device, such as the network device 110 shown in FIG. 1; the communication system can also include at least one terminal device, such as the terminal device 120 and the terminal device 130 shown in FIG. 1. The network device 110 and the terminal devices (such as the terminal device 120 and the terminal device 130) can communicate through wireless links, and the terminal device 120 and the terminal device 130 can communicate directly through sidelinks. The communication devices in the communication system, such as the network device 110 and the terminal device 120, can communicate through multi-antenna technology.

[0132] For example, FIG. 2, FIG. 3, and FIG. 4 are another example diagrams of system architectures of the downlink measurement method according to the embodiments of the present application. As shown in FIG. 2, the communication system can include at least one network device, such as the network access device 210 shown in FIG. 2; the communication system can also include at least one terminal device, such as the terminal device 220 and the terminal device 230 shown in FIG. 2. The network access device 210 and the terminal devices (such as the terminal device 220 and the terminal device 230) can communicate through wireless links, and the terminal device 220 and the terminal device 230 can communicate directly through sidelinks. The communication devices in the communication system, such as the network access device 210 and the terminal device 220, can communicate through multi-antenna technology.

[0133] For example, as shown in FIG. 3, the communication system can include at least one network device 310; the communication system can also include at least one terminal device, such as the vehicle-mounted device 320 and the vehicle-mounted device 330 shown in FIG. 3. The network device 310 and the terminal devices (such as the vehicle-mounted device 320 and the vehicle-mounted device 330) can communicate through wireless links, and the vehicle-mounted device 320 and the vehicle-mounted device 330 can communicate directly through sidelinks. The communication devices in the communication system, such as the network device 310 and the vehicle-mounted device 320, can communicate through multi-antenna technology.

[0134] It should be understood that the embodiments of the present application can also be applied to a communication system for terminal direct communication, which can include at least two terminal devices, such as the terminal device 410 and the terminal device 420 shown in FIG. 4, which communicate directly through sidelinks.

[0135] In the embodiments of the present application, the device for implementing the function of the network device can be the network device, or a device (such as a chip system, a hardware circuit, a software module, or a hardware circuit plus a software module) capable of supporting the network device to implement the function. The device can be installed in the network device or used in combination with the network device. In the embodiments of the present application, only the device for implementing the function of the access network device is taken as an example for description, and the scheme of the embodiments of the present application is not limited in this way.

[0136] In the embodiments of the present application, the terminal device can also be referred to as a user equipment (UE), a terminal, a wireless terminal device, a mobile terminal (MT) device, a subscriber unit, a subscriber station, a mobile station (MS), a mobile, a remote station, a remote terminal, an access terminal, a user terminal, a user agent, a user device, a wireless communication device, a user agent or a user equipment, etc. The terminal device can be a device providing voice and / or data, for example, a handheld device with wireless connection function, a vehicle-mounted device, etc. At present, some examples of the terminal are: a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a notebook computer, a palm computer, a mobile internet device (MID), a wearable device, a virtual reality (VR) device, an augmented reality (AR) device, a wireless terminal in industrial control, a wireless terminal in self driving, a wireless terminal in remote medical surgery, a wireless terminal in smart grid, a wireless terminal in transportation safety, a wireless terminal in smart city, a wireless terminal in smart home, a cellular phone, a cordless phone, a session initiation protocol (SIP) phone, a wireless local loop (WLL) station, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a handheld device with wireless communication function, a computing device or other processing device connected to a wireless modem or a wearable device, a terminal device in a 5G network or a terminal device in a future evolved public land mobile network (PLMN), etc. The embodiments of the present application are not limited thereto.

[0137] In the embodiments of the present application, the device for implementing the function of the terminal device can be a terminal device, or a device capable of supporting the terminal device to implement the function, such as a chip system, a vehicle-mounted communication module or other embedded communication modules, which can be installed in the terminal device or used in combination with the terminal device. In the embodiments of the present application, the chip system can be composed of a chip, or can include a chip and other discrete devices. Among them, the terminal device can be located within the coverage range of the network device, and the terminal device within the coverage range can also perform direct connection communication with the terminal device outside the coverage range.

[0138] It should be noted that the network device and / or the terminal device can be deployed on land, including indoors or outdoors, handheld or vehicle-mounted; can also be deployed on the water surface; and can also be deployed on airplanes, balloons and satellites in the air. The present application does not limit the scenarios in which the network device and the terminal device are located. In addition, the terminal device and the network device can be hardware devices; can also be software functions running on special-purpose hardware or general-purpose hardware, such as virtualized functions instantiated on a platform (e.g., a cloud platform); or can be entities including special-purpose or general-purpose hardware devices and software functions, and the present application does not limit the specific forms of the terminal device and the network device.

[0139] II. The following introduces several application scenarios to which the embodiments of the present application are applicable:

[0140] Based on the above communication system, the embodiments of the present application take the network device and the user equipment as an example for illustration, which does not limit the solutions of the embodiments of the present application. The embodiments of the present application provide a downlink measurement method, which can enable the network device and the user equipment to maintain downlink communication on part of the downlink carriers during cross-carrier downlink measurement.

[0141] In the field of communication, in order to expand the transmission bandwidth and improve the transmission efficiency of the user equipment (UE, user equipment), the user equipment can communicate with the network device through the carrier aggregation mode. Carrier aggregation (CA, carrier aggregation) of multiple carriers (CC, component carrier) includes uplink carrier aggregation and downlink carrier aggregation, and can also be divided into inter-band CA and intra-band CA. Inter-band CA means that the aggregated CCs belong to different bands; intra-band CA means that the aggregated CCs belong to the same band. Specifically, intra-band CA is divided into continuous and non-continuous, continuous means that the aggregated CCs are continuous in the frequency domain, and non-continuous means that the aggregated CCs are non-continuous in the frequency domain.

[0142] The first application scenario: the number of DL CCs configured by the network device for the user equipment is coupled with the number of DL CCs that can be supported by the user equipment.

[0143] The number of DL CCs configured by the network device for the user equipment is also coupled with the number of DL CCs that can be supported by the user equipment, which can be understood as that the number of DL CCs configured by the network device for the user equipment is less than or equal to the number of DL CCs that can be supported by the user equipment, that is, the user equipment can support parallel communication with the network device on M DL CCs, and the network device configures the user equipment with less than or equal to M DL CCs. Here, the number of DL CCs that can be supported by the user equipment can be understood as the number of DL CCs that can be supported by the user equipment capability.

[0144] For example, as shown in FIG. 5, which is a schematic diagram of an application scenario of the downlink measurement method provided by the embodiment of the present application, the user equipment supports parallel communication on more than or equal to two DL CCs, the network device configures the user equipment with two DL CCs (DLCC 0, DLCC 1), and the user equipment performs downlink communication with the network device through (DLCC 0, DLCC 1).

[0145] Optionally, the number of uplink and downlink aggregated carriers supported by the user equipment is coupled. That is, the user equipment supports X UL CCs for uplink communication, and supports more than or equal to X DL CCs for downlink communication. Optionally, the number of uplink and downlink aggregated carriers supported by the user equipment is decoupled. That is, the user equipment supports X UL CCs for uplink communication, and supports less than X DL CCs for downlink communication.

[0146] Optionally, for a TDD band (same frequency band for uplink and downlink) or an FDD band (UL band and DL band are planned in pairs), the network device configures the user equipment with paired UL CCs and DL CCs.

[0147] The second application scenario: the number of DL CCs configured by the network device for the user equipment is decoupled from the number of DL CCs that can be supported by the user equipment.

[0148] It can be understood that, based on the first application scenario, the number of parallel transmission or the bandwidth supported by the user equipment on multiple CCs is mainly limited by the user equipment capability. That is, when the downlink capability of the user equipment is limited, for example, the number of downlink channels supported by the user equipment is limited, and therefore the user equipment simultaneously performs downlink reception or downlink processing on a limited number of DL CCs based on the limited number of downlink channels. Optionally, the downlink reception channel can refer to a downlink radio frequency channel, a downlink baseband channel or a downlink reception capability.

[0149] However, in the future, user equipment needs to support more number of UL CC aggregation capabilities to meet the increasing demand of user equipment uplink, but if at the same time, support the same number of DL CC aggregation capabilities, it will greatly increase the complexity and cost of user equipment implementation, and the requirement of user equipment capability is higher. In addition, considering that there are different specifications of user equipment, part of the low-end user equipment may have the demand of further reducing the requirement of downlink capability on the basis of supporting a certain uplink communication performance.

[0150] Therefore, in the embodiment of the present application, the number of DL CCs (M) configured by the network device to the user equipment and the number of DL CCs (N) supported by the user equipment can be decoupled. It can be understood that the number of DL CCs configured by the network device to the user equipment is greater than the number of DL CCs supported by the user equipment. That is, when M is greater than or equal to N, the network device and the user equipment can perform downlink communication on part of the configured DL CCs. In addition, for cross-carrier downlink measurement, by implementing the embodiment of the present application, the network device and the user equipment can also normally communicate on part of the downlink carriers during cross-carrier downlink measurement.

[0151] For example, as shown in FIG. 6, FIG. 6 is another application scenario diagram of the downlink measurement method provided by the embodiment of the present application.

[0152] Referring to FIG. 6, the user equipment supports parallel communication with the network device on 2 DL CCs, and the network device can configure 4 DL CCs (DLCC 0, DLCC 1, DLCC 2, DLCC 3) to the user equipment. The network device and the user equipment can select two DL CCs from the four DL CCs for downlink communication, which can be referred to as resident DL CCs. Optionally, the downlink communication can include one or more of downlink control, downlink data, and downlink reference signal. For example, the user equipment communicates with the network device on the activated resident DL CCs (DLCC 0, DLCC 2). The user equipment realizes downlink communication on different DL CCs within the number of DL CCs supported by the user equipment by flexibly switching among the multiple DL CCs configured by the network device. In this way, the user equipment can fully utilize the DL CCs configured by the network device to the user equipment for downlink communication with the network device, and select appropriate DL CCs as resident DL CCs as needed to improve communication performance.

[0153] In the embodiment of the present application, the resident DL CC refers to the currently working DL CC or the activated DL CC or the receiving state DL CC, and the non-resident DL CC refers to the non-working DL CC or the non-activated DL CC or the non-receiving state DL CC.

[0154] Optionally, the to-be-measured downlink carrier is a non-resident DL CC.

[0155] For the above two application scenarios, in a possible implementation, the UL CC corresponds to one uplink cell, the DL CC corresponds to one downlink cell, the corresponding UL CC and DL CC correspond to a cell, or it is understood that the corresponding UL CC and DL CC form a cell. At this time, the cross-carrier measurement can be understood as switching between downlink cells.

[0156] In another possible implementation, at least one UL CC corresponds to one uplink cell, at least one DL CC corresponds to one downlink cell, at least one corresponding UL CC and DL CC correspond to a cell, or it is understood that at least one UL CC and the corresponding DL CC form a cell. For example, multiple UL CCs and the corresponding DL CCs form a cell. At this time, the cross-carrier measurement can be switching between downlink carriers within a cell, or switching between downlink carriers between cells. For example, switching between downlink carriers within a cell can also be switching between sub-cells. The specific implementation is not limited here.

[0157] It can be understood that the uplink carrier can be a nominal uplink (NUL) carrier and / or a supplementary uplink (SUL) carrier.

[0158] Optionally, the cell, carrier, frequency point, BWP, frequency band, RB set, and the like can be replaced with each other.

[0159] It should be noted that the embodiments of the present application are not limited to the above two application scenarios, and the above two application scenarios are exemplary. In actual application, it is considered that as long as the cross-carrier downlink measurement of the downlink carrier can implement the embodiments of the present application, and the embodiments of the present application are not limited to this. It can be understood that the cross-carrier downlink measurement can also be represented as inter-frequency measurement, cross-frequency domain resource measurement (such as cross-band measurement, cross-part bandwidth BWP measurement), or cross-cell measurement or cross-frequency point measurement, and the like. Optionally, the DL CC to be measured can also be a frequency point to be measured, a cell to be measured, a frequency domain resource (such as BWP or frequency band) to be measured, and the like. Optionally, the cell to be measured is a configured but not activated Scell, or the cell to be measured is a configured, activated but currently not receiving downlink Scell, or the frequency point to be measured is a configured other non-working frequency point. It can be understood that the reason why the configured, activated but currently not receiving downlink is due to network configuration or user equipment capability constraint. It can be understood that the embodiments of the present application can also be used in the scene of cross-carrier uplink transmission, for example, the user equipment needs to perform uplink transmission on a non-resident uplink carrier.

[0160] Based on the above application scenarios, whether the user equipment needs to know the channel conditions of other downlink carriers in the first application scenario or the channel conditions of non-resident DLCCs in the second application scenario, the user equipment can perform downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier through cross-carrier downlink measurement to obtain the measurement result. That is, during the cross-carrier downlink measurement, the user equipment switches the downlink receiving channel of a resident DLCC to the to-be-measured DLCC for cross-carrier downlink measurement. The to-be-measured DLCC and the switched resident DLCC are different DLCCs, for example, the center frequency and / or the subcarrier spacing of the to-be-measured DLCC and the switched resident DLCC are different. The specific implementation is as follows:

[0161] For example, the network device determines which downlink communication on the resident DLCC to interrupt based on the network configuration information or the indication information of the network device. The user equipment can also determine which downlink communication on the resident DLCC to interrupt (or switch the downlink receiving channel of the resident DLCC to the to-be-measured DLCC for cross-carrier downlink measurement) during the downlink measurement, and maintain normal downlink communication on other resident DLCCs. For example, the user equipment determines which downlink communication on the resident DLCC to interrupt based on the reporting of the first information of the user equipment. Alternatively, the network device and the user equipment determine which downlink communication on the resident DLCC to interrupt based on one or more preset rules. The following will be described respectively:

[0162] Embodiment one: The user equipment determines which downlink communication on the resident DLCC in the resident downlink carrier set to suspend during the cross-carrier downlink measurement, switches the downlink receiving channel of the resident DLCC to the to-be-measured DLCC for cross-carrier downlink measurement, and does not affect the downlink communication on other resident DLCCs.

[0163] As shown in FIG. 7, FIG. 7 is a flowchart of the downlink measurement method provided by the embodiment of the present application. The specific steps of the downlink measurement method provided by the embodiment of the present application are as follows:

[0164] Step 701: The user equipment reports its capability information to the network device. The capability information includes first capability information and / or second capability information.

[0165] For example, when the user equipment enters the network, it will report its own capability information to the network device, so that the network device can communicate with the user equipment according to the capability information reported by the user equipment, or better align with the user equipment during the cross-carrier downlink measurement.

[0166] The capability information can include first capability information and / or second capability information. The first capability information indicates that the user equipment supports suspending downlink communication with the network device on at least one downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers and maintaining downlink communication with the network device on other downlink carriers in the set of camped downlink carriers when cross-carrier downlink measurement is performed. The second capability information indicates that the user equipment supports a number of downlink carriers configured by the network device to be greater than or equal to a number of downlink carriers that can be supported by the user equipment.

[0167] In the embodiments of the present application, the user equipment can report the first capability information and the second capability information to the network device in various ways, which are described as follows.

[0168] I. The first capability information indicates whether the user equipment supports maintaining normal downlink communication on part of the camped downlink carriers or other downlink carriers or does not affect downlink communication on part of the camped downlink carriers or other downlink carriers when cross-carrier downlink measurement is performed. Optionally, the first capability information can be reported separately for each band combination, separately for each band, separately for each band in each band combination, or separately for each carrier in each band in each band combination, which are described as follows.

[0169] Intra-band cross-carrier downlink measurement refers to cross-carrier downlink measurement when the camped downlink carriers in the set of camped carriers and the downlink carriers to be measured are located in the same band. Inter-band cross-carrier downlink measurement refers to cross-carrier downlink measurement when the camped downlink carriers in the set of camped carriers and the downlink carriers to be measured are located in different bands.

[0170] 1. The first capability information is reported separately for each band combination.

[0171] A. Different band combinations report the following capability 1: whether to support maintaining normal downlink communication on part of the camped downlink carriers when intra-band and / or inter-band cross-carrier downlink measurement is performed in the band combination.

[0172] In one possible implementation, the first capability information of different band combinations in the first set of bands can be reported separately, and each band combination includes a plurality of bands. That is, for different band combinations, the capability 1 of whether to support maintaining normal downlink communication on part of the camped downlink carriers when intra-band and / or inter-band cross-carrier downlink measurement is performed in the band combination can be reported separately.

[0173] Specifically, the capability 1 is whether to support suspending downlink communication on a first downlink carrier and maintaining downlink communication on a second downlink carrier in a set of camped downlink carriers when cross-carrier downlink measurement is performed in any frequency band in a frequency band combination and / or between frequency bands. The first downlink carrier and the second downlink carrier are downlink carriers in the same frequency band combination.

[0174] For example, the first capability information of the frequency band combination 1 and the frequency band combination 2 is reported respectively. If the frequency band combination 1 supports the capability 1, the value 1 is reported, and if the frequency band combination 2 does not support the capability 1, the value 0 is reported. When the network device receives the value corresponding to the capability 1 of the frequency band combination 1 as 1, it is considered that all the frequency bands in the frequency band combination 1 support maintaining downlink communication of part of the camped downlink carriers during cross-carrier downlink measurement, or it can be considered that all the frequency bands in the frequency band combination 1 support maintaining downlink communication of all the camped downlink carriers except the camped downlink carrier to be switched during cross-carrier downlink measurement.

[0175] B. The following capability 2 is reported for different frequency band combinations respectively: whether to support maintaining normal downlink communication on part of the camped downlink carriers when cross-carrier downlink measurement is performed in any frequency band in the frequency band combination.

[0176] In a possible implementation, the first capability information in any frequency band in different frequency band combinations is reported respectively, and each frequency band combination includes a plurality of frequency bands. That is, for different frequency band combinations, the following capability 2 is reported respectively: whether to support maintaining normal downlink communication on part of the camped downlink carriers when cross-carrier downlink measurement is performed in any frequency band in the frequency band combination.

[0177] Specifically, the capability 2 is whether to support suspending downlink communication on a first downlink carrier and maintaining downlink communication on a second downlink carrier in a set of camped downlink carriers when cross-carrier measurement is performed in any frequency band in a frequency band combination. The first downlink carrier and the second downlink carrier are downlink carriers in the frequency band combination.

[0178] For example, the first capability information of the frequency band combination 1 and the frequency band combination 2 is reported respectively. If the frequency band combination 1 supports the capability 2, the value 1 is reported, and if the frequency band combination 2 does not support the capability 2, the value 0 is reported. When the network device receives the value corresponding to the capability 2 of the frequency band combination 1 as 1, it is considered that all the frequency bands in the frequency band combination 1 support maintaining downlink communication of part of the camped downlink carriers during cross-carrier downlink measurement. It can be understood that the present embodiment is applicable to cross-carrier downlink measurement in a frequency band, that is, cross-carrier downlink measurement when the camped downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers and the downlink carrier to be measured are located in the same frequency band.

[0179] C. For each of the different band combinations, report the following capability 3: whether the UE supports suspending downlink communication on a first downlink carrier while maintaining downlink communication on a second downlink carrier in the set of downlink carriers during cross-carrier downlink measurement between any bands in the band combination.

[0180] In one possible implementation, the first capability information is reported for each of the different bands in the band combination. That is, for each of the different bands, report the following capability 4: whether the UE supports suspending downlink communication on a first downlink carrier while maintaining downlink communication on a second downlink carrier in the set of downlink carriers during cross-carrier downlink measurement in the band. For example, the UE reports the first capability information for the downlink carriers in the band 1 and the band 2 to the network device.

[0181] For example, the first capability information is reported for each of the band combination 1 and the band combination 2. If the band combination 1 supports the capability 3, a value 1 is reported, and if the band combination 2 does not support the capability 3, a value 0 is reported. When the network device receives the value 1 corresponding to the capability 3 of the band combination 1, it is considered that all bands in the band combination 1 support maintaining downlink communication on the part of the downlink carriers during cross-carrier downlink measurement between the bands. It can be understood that the present implementation is applicable to cross-carrier downlink measurement between the bands, that is, cross-carrier downlink measurement when the downlink carrier in the set of downlink carriers and the downlink carrier to be measured are located in different bands in the same band combination.

[0182] Optionally, the UE can report one or more of the capability 1, the capability 2, and the capability 3. It can be understood that the first capability information includes one or more of the capability 1, the capability 2, and the capability 3.

[0183] 2. The first capability information is reported for each of the bands.

[0184] In one possible implementation, the first capability information is reported for each of the different bands in the band combination. That is, for each of the different bands, report the following capability 4: whether the UE supports suspending downlink communication on a first downlink carrier while maintaining downlink communication on a second downlink carrier in the set of downlink carriers during cross-carrier downlink measurement in the band. For example, the UE reports the first capability information for the downlink carriers in the band 1 and the band 2 to the network device.

[0185] In another possible implementation, the first capability information of different frequency bands is reported respectively. That is, for different frequency bands, the following capability 5 is reported respectively: whether to support maintaining normal downlink communication on part of downlink carriers when performing in-band cross-carrier downlink measurement or inter-band cross-carrier downlink measurement on a carrier in the frequency band. Specifically, when performing cross-carrier downlink measurement on a carrier in the frequency band, the downlink communication on a first downlink carrier is suspended, and the downlink communication on a second downlink carrier in a set of camping downlink carriers is maintained. The first downlink carrier and the second downlink carrier are downlink carriers in the same frequency band. For example, the user equipment reports the first capability information of downlink carriers in frequency band 1 and frequency band 2 to the network equipment respectively.

[0186] 3. The first capability information of each frequency band in each frequency band combination is reported respectively:

[0187] In another possible implementation, the first capability information of different frequency bands in different frequency band combinations is reported respectively, and each frequency band combination contains multiple frequency bands. That is, for different frequency bands in different frequency band combinations, the following capability 6 is reported respectively: whether to support maintaining normal downlink communication on part of camping downlink carriers when performing in-band cross-carrier downlink measurement on a frequency band in the frequency band combination. Specifically, the capability 6 is whether to support suspending the downlink communication on a first downlink carrier and maintaining the downlink communication on a second downlink carrier in a set of camping downlink carriers when performing in-band cross-carrier downlink measurement on a frequency band in the frequency band combination. The second downlink carrier can be a camping downlink carrier other than the first downlink carrier in the set of camping downlink carriers. The first downlink carrier and the second downlink carrier are downlink carriers in the same frequency band in the frequency band combination, and the set of camping downlink carriers can be all camping downlink carriers in the same frequency band in the same frequency band combination.

[0188] For example, frequency band combination 1 {band1, band2}, and frequency band combination 2 {band2, band3} contain frequency band 2 and frequency band 3, and the first capability information of band1 in frequency band combination 1, band2 in frequency band combination 1, band2 in frequency band combination 2, and band3 in frequency band combination 2 is reported respectively. If band2 in frequency band combination 1 supports the capability 6, the value 1 is reported, and if frequency band 2 in frequency band combination 2 does not support the capability 6, the value 0 is reported. When the network equipment receives the value corresponding to the capability 6 of band2 in frequency band combination 1, it is considered that band2 in frequency band combination 1 supports maintaining the downlink communication of part of camping downlink carriers on band2 during in-band cross-carrier downlink measurement. It can be understood that the capability 6 of the same frequency band (such as band2) in different frequency band combinations can be reported respectively.

[0189] In another possible implementation, the first capability information of different frequency bands within different frequency band combinations is reported respectively, and each frequency band combination contains multiple frequency bands. That is, for different frequency bands within different frequency band combinations, the following capability 7 is reported respectively: whether to support maintaining normal downlink communication on part of the downlink carriers when performing intra-band cross-carrier downlink measurement or inter-band cross-carrier downlink measurement on a carrier within the frequency band of the frequency band combination. Specifically, the capability 7 is whether to support suspending downlink communication on a first downlink carrier and maintaining downlink communication on a second downlink carrier in the set of downlink carriers when performing cross-carrier downlink measurement on the carrier within the frequency band of the frequency band combination. For example, the capability 7 of the same frequency band in different frequency band combinations can be reported respectively.

[0190] 4. The first capability information of each carrier of each frequency band of each frequency band combination is reported respectively.

[0191] In another possible implementation, the first capability information of different frequency bands within different frequency band combinations is reported respectively, and each frequency band combination contains multiple frequency bands. That is, for different frequency bands within different frequency band combinations, the following capability 7 is reported respectively: whether to support maintaining normal downlink communication on part of the downlink carriers when performing intra-band cross-carrier downlink measurement or inter-band cross-carrier downlink measurement on a carrier within the frequency band of the frequency band combination. Specifically, the capability 7 is whether to support suspending downlink communication on a first downlink carrier and maintaining downlink communication on a second downlink carrier in the set of downlink carriers when performing cross-carrier downlink measurement on the carrier within the frequency band of the frequency band combination. For example, the capability 7 of the same frequency band in different frequency band combinations can be reported respectively.

[0192] Optionally, the first capability information further includes a downlink carrier combination relationship between all downlink carriers in the first set of downlink carriers, or a frequency band combination relationship between frequency bands in which all downlink carriers in the first set of downlink carriers are located.

[0193] It can be understood that, for the above several manners, maintaining normal communication of part of the downlink carriers can be all downlink carriers in the set of downlink carriers except the switched downlink carrier, or part of the downlink carriers in the set of downlink carriers except the switched downlink carrier.

[0194] It can be understood that, when performing cross-carrier downlink measurement, if the number of to-be-measured downlink carriers is equal to the number of downlink carriers, that is, all downlink reception channels of the downlink carriers are used for cross-carrier downlink measurement of each to-be-measured downlink carrier, then normal communication on any downlink carrier is not maintained.

[0195] It should be noted that the above capability information can be combined with each other and / or different embodiments. Alternatively, the above capability information and different embodiments can be reported in the same user equipment capability or in multiple user equipment capabilities. For example, reporting in the same user equipment capability can be reported as different components of the same user equipment capability.

[0196] II. The second capability information can report the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support the network device to configure and / or the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support by itself.

[0197] Alternatively, the second capability information includes the following capability 9: whether the user equipment supports the decoupling of the number of DL CCs configured by the network device and the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support. It can be understood that whether the user equipment supports the number of DL CCs configured by the network device is greater than the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support.

[0198] Alternatively, the second capability information further includes the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support the network device to configure and / or the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support by itself. It can be understood that the second capability information includes one or more of whether the user equipment supports the number of DL CCs configured by the network device is greater than the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support, the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support the network device to configure, and the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support by itself. Alternatively, one or more of the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support the network device to configure and / or the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support by itself can also be reported in other capability information, for example, reported in the first capability information, which is not limited here.

[0199] On the premise that the user equipment supports the number of DL CCs configured by the network device is greater than the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support, the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support the network device to configure and / or the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support by itself are described respectively:

[0200] 1. Report the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support the network device to configure and the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support by itself.

[0201] For example, when the user equipment reports the second capability information, the user equipment reports both the number M of DL CCs that the user equipment can support the network equipment to configure and the number N of DL CCs that the user equipment can support by itself, and reports the numbers respectively. Wherein M is greater than or equal to N. For example, if the network equipment receives the value of M reported by the user equipment is 4 and the value of N is 2, it is considered that the user equipment can be configured with 4 DL CCs at most, and the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support is 2.

[0202] 2. reporting the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support by itself.

[0203] For example, when the user equipment reports the second capability information, the user equipment reports the number N of DL CCs that the user equipment can support by itself, and does not report the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support the network equipment to configure. For example, if the network equipment receives the value of N reported by the user equipment is 2, it is considered that the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support is 2. And the number of DL CCs that the network equipment configures for the user equipment can be determined by the network equipment itself, for example, the network equipment configures 4 DL CCs for the user equipment.

[0204] Optionally, the second capability information can be reported respectively according to each frequency band combination, or each frequency band, or each frequency band of each frequency band combination, or each carrier of each frequency band of each frequency band combination. It can be understood that different frequency band combinations can report different capabilities, or different frequency bands can report different capabilities, or each frequency band of each frequency band combination can report different capabilities. For example, when each frequency band is reported respectively, it can be reported whether the user equipment supports the number of DL CCs that the network equipment configures is greater than the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support, and / or the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support the network equipment to configure, and / or the number of DL CCs that the user equipment can support by itself. For details, refer to the detailed description of the implementation mode of the first capability information reporting, which will not be repeated here.

[0205] It can be understood that the above-mentioned multiple reporting modes are only exemplary and do not constitute the application which can only be reported by the above-mentioned modes. For example, the embodiments of the application can also report the first capability information of all frequency bands by the same value or other reporting modes, which are not limited here.

[0206] It should be noted that the first capability information and / or the second capability information and / or the first information can be reported in the same user equipment capability or in multiple user equipment capabilities. For example, it can be reported as different components of the same user equipment capability. Optionally, the switching time or priority indicated in the first information can be reported respectively. For details, refer to the detailed description in step 704.

[0207] In a possible implementation, the user equipment can further report third capability information, the third capability information comprising that the user equipment supports decoupling of the number of uplink CCs and the number of downlink CCs, i.e., the number of supported downlink aggregated CCs can be different from the number of supported uplink aggregated CCs, or the number of supported downlink aggregated CCs is less than the number of supported uplink aggregated CCs. It can be understood that the third capability information comprises one or more of the number of supported downlink aggregated CCs being less than the number of supported uplink aggregated CCs, the number of supported downlink aggregated CCs, and the number of supported uplink aggregated CCs.

[0208] Optionally, the third capability information can further comprise the number of CCs that the user equipment supports to be simultaneously sent and / or received in parallel. The specific reporting manner can be: on the basis of reporting that the user equipment supports decoupling of the number of uplink CCs and the number of downlink CCs, further reporting the number of CCs that can be simultaneously sent and / or received in parallel; or, respectively reporting the DL CC aggregation capability and the UL CC aggregation capability, or respectively reporting the number of CCs that can be simultaneously sent and received in parallel; or, on the basis of reporting the number of carrier aggregated CCs that the user equipment supports, further reporting the number of CCs that can be simultaneously sent and / or received in parallel.

[0209] The number of downlink aggregated CCs and / or the number of uplink aggregated CCs can also be reported in other capability information of the user equipment. For example, the number of downlink aggregated CCs is 2 and the number of uplink aggregated CCs is 3 are reported to the network equipment. The specific reporting manner can be referred to the detailed description of the reporting of the second capability information described above, which will not be described herein again.

[0210] In step 702, the user equipment sends first information to the network equipment.

[0211] Optionally, the first information is used to determine the switching time required for each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set to switch to a downlink carrier in another frequency band in the first frequency band set. And / or, the first information can be used to determine the switching time required for each downlink carrier in each frequency band in the first frequency band set to switch to a downlink carrier in another frequency band in the first frequency band set. The downlink carriers in the camping downlink carrier set and / or the to-be-measured downlink carrier set are located in part or all of the frequency bands in the first frequency band set, and the first frequency band set comprises the frequency bands in which the downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set are located.

[0212] Optionally, the first information is used to determine the switching time required for each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set to switch to a downlink carrier in another frequency band in the first frequency band set. And / or, the first information can be used to determine the switching time required for each downlink carrier in each frequency band in the first frequency band set to switch to a downlink carrier in another frequency band in the first frequency band set. The downlink carriers in the camping downlink carrier set and / or the to-be-measured downlink carrier set are located in part or all of the frequency bands in the first frequency band set, and the first frequency band set comprises the frequency bands in which the downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set are located.

[0213] Optionally, the first information can also be used to determine the priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first downlink carrier set, or can also be used to determine the priority of other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set. Wherein, the downlink carrier combination is the combination of any two downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set.

[0214] Optionally, the to-be-measured downlink carrier is a non-resident DLCC.

[0215] In the embodiments of the present application, in order to realize the alignment between the user equipment and the network equipment, that is, to further realize the interruption of the downlink communication on the first downlink carrier while maintaining the downlink communication on the second downlink carrier without wasting the scheduling resources of the network equipment, the user equipment reports the first information to the network equipment, so that the network equipment can also determine the first downlink carrier from the downlink carrier set based on the first information, and realize the alignment between the user equipment and the network equipment.

[0216] In other words, when the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier, by reporting the first information through the user equipment, the network equipment can know which downlink receiving channel of the resident DLCC will be switched to the to-be-measured downlink carrier by the user equipment for cross-carrier downlink measurement, and the network equipment can schedule transmission to the user equipment on the second downlink carrier during the cross-carrier downlink measurement, instead of scheduling transmission on the first downlink carrier. Avoid the situation of resource waste and communication performance decline caused by the network equipment still scheduling resources on the first downlink carrier due to the network equipment's inability to know the first downlink carrier is interrupted.

[0217] For example, if the network equipment does not know which downlink receiving channel of the resident DLCC will be switched to the to-be-measured downlink carrier by the user equipment for cross-carrier downlink measurement, that is, the network equipment does not know which resident DLCC is interrupted. Then, during the cross-carrier downlink measurement, the network equipment may still schedule the downlink shared physical channel (PDSCH) or send the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) on the original resident DLCC, while the user equipment has interrupted the original resident DLCC, resulting in the user equipment being unable to receive the PDCCH or PDSCH resources, affecting the communication performance. Or, to avoid the above scenario, the network equipment chooses not to perform downlink transmission on any resident DLCC during the measurement period, which will result in resource waste, affecting scheduling flexibility and downlink transmission performance.

[0218] It can be understood that the first information reported to the network equipment can also include other information, such as the address of the user equipment, the number of downlink receiving channels supported by the user equipment, and the like, which are not limited here.

[0219] Optionally, the first information can be reported together with the first capability information. Optionally, the user equipment can report the first information to the network equipment in multiple ways, the first information can be reported separately per frequency band combination, per frequency band, or per frequency band per frequency band combination, or per downlink carrier per frequency band per frequency band combination.

[0220] The detailed description of the reporting manner can refer to the related description of the capability information reporting in step 701. The different reporting manners are briefly described as follows.

[0221] A. The first information of each frequency band combination is reported separately.

[0222] It should be noted that in the embodiment, the switching time and / or the priority are defined separately for each frequency band combination, wherein each frequency band combination contains multiple frequency bands. It can be understood that for each frequency band combination, the first information includes the switching time between the downlink carriers in each frequency band within the frequency band combination, and / or the switching time between the downlink carriers in different frequency bands within the frequency band combination, and / or the switching time between any downlink carriers in any frequency band within the frequency band combination, and / or the priority of the downlink carrier combination in any frequency band within the frequency band combination, and / or the priority of the other downlink carriers in the corresponding frequency band of the downlink carrier in any frequency band within the frequency band combination, and / or the priority of the downlink carrier combination between any frequency bands within the frequency band combination, and / or the priority of the downlink carrier in any frequency band within the frequency band combination corresponding to the downlink carrier in other frequency bands. The following is described separately.

[0223] a. The first information in and / or between any frequency band of different frequency band combinations is reported separately.

[0224] In a possible embodiment, the first information in and / or between any frequency band of different frequency band combinations in the first frequency band set is reported separately, and each frequency band combination contains multiple frequency bands. That is, for different frequency band combinations in the first frequency band set, one or more of the following first information is reported separately: the switching time between the downlink carriers in and / or between any frequency band within the frequency band combination, and / or the priority of the downlink carrier combination in and / or between any frequency band within the frequency band combination, and / or the priority of the other downlink carriers corresponding to the downlink carrier in the same frequency band within any frequency band within the frequency band combination, and / or the priority of the other downlink carriers corresponding to the downlink carrier in any frequency band.

[0225] For example, band combination 1 is {band1, band2}, and band combination 2 is {band3, band4}. The first information of band combination 1 and band combination 2 are reported respectively. Taking band combination 1 as an example, one or more of the following first information can be reported: the handover time between downlink carriers in band1 and the handover time between downlink carriers in band2, and / or the handover time between downlink carriers on band1 and downlink carriers on band2; and / or the priority between downlink carrier combinations in band1 and downlink carrier combinations in band2, and / or the priority between downlink carrier combinations formed by downlink carriers on band1 and downlink carriers on band2; and / or the priority of downlink carriers in band1 corresponding to other downlink carriers in band1 and the priority of downlink carriers in band2 corresponding to other downlink carriers in band2, and / or the priority of downlink carriers in band1 corresponding to downlink carriers in band2.

[0226] b. The first information within any frequency band of different frequency band combinations shall be reported separately.

[0227] In one possible implementation, first information within any frequency band of different frequency band combinations in the first frequency band set is reported respectively, with each frequency band combination containing multiple frequency bands. That is, for different frequency band combinations in the first frequency band set, one or more of the following first information are reported respectively: the handover time between downlink carriers in any frequency band within the frequency band combination, and / or, the priority of the downlink carrier combination in any frequency band within the frequency band combination, and / or, the priority of other downlink carriers corresponding to the downlink carriers in any frequency band within the frequency band combination.

[0228] For example, band combination 1 is {band1, band2}, and band combination 2 is {band3, band4}. The first information of band combination 1 and band combination 2 is reported separately. Taking band combination 1 as an example, one or more of the following first information can be reported: the handover time between downlink carriers in band1 and the handover time between downlink carriers in band2; and / or, the priority between the downlink carrier combination in band1 and the downlink carrier combination in band2; and / or, the priority of the downlink carrier in band1 corresponding to other downlink carriers in band1 and the priority of the downlink carrier in band2 corresponding to other downlink carriers in band2.

[0229] c. The first information between any frequency bands of different frequency band combinations is reported separately.

[0230] In a possible implementation, the first information between any two frequency bands in different frequency band combinations in the first set of frequency bands is respectively reported, and each frequency band combination contains a plurality of frequency bands. That is, for different frequency band combinations in the first set of frequency bands, one or more of the following first information is respectively reported: a switching time between downlink carriers between any two frequency bands in the frequency band combination, and / or a priority of a downlink carrier combination between any two frequency bands in the frequency band combination, and / or a priority of a downlink carrier in any frequency band in the frequency band combination corresponding to a downlink carrier in another frequency band.

[0231] For example, the frequency band combination 1 is {band1, band2}, the frequency band combination 2 is {band3, band4}, and the first information of the frequency band combination 1 and the frequency band combination 2 is respectively reported. Taking the frequency band combination 1 as an example, one or more of the following first information can be reported: a switching time between a downlink carrier on band1 and a downlink carrier on band2; and / or a priority of a downlink carrier combination between the downlink carrier on band1 and the downlink carrier on band2; and / or a priority of a downlink carrier in band1 corresponding to a downlink carrier in band2.

[0232] Alternatively, the switching time between consecutive downlink carriers in the same frequency band or different frequency bands in a frequency band combination, and the switching time between non-consecutive downlink carriers in the same frequency band or different frequency bands in a frequency band combination can be respectively reported. It can be understood that the switching time between downlink carriers in different frequency bands in the same frequency band combination can be respectively reported. For example, the frequency band combination is {band1, band2, band3}, and the switching time between a downlink carrier of band1 and a downlink carrier of band2, and the switching time between a downlink carrier of band1 and a downlink carrier of band3 can be respectively reported.

[0233] Alternatively, the switching time between consecutive downlink carriers and the switching time between non-consecutive downlink carriers can be different, or can be respectively defined, or can be respectively reported. For example, the first information includes the switching time between consecutive downlink carriers and / or the switching time between non-consecutive downlink carriers in each frequency band in the frequency band combination. For another example, the first information includes the switching time between consecutive downlink carriers and / or the switching time between non-consecutive downlink carriers in different frequency bands in the frequency band combination. For another example, the first information includes the switching time between consecutive downlink carriers and / or the switching time between non-consecutive downlink carriers. Wherein, the consecutive downlink carriers refer to downlink carriers that are continuous in the frequency domain, and the non-consecutive downlink carriers refer to downlink carriers that are non-continuous in the frequency domain.

[0234] B, respectively report per frequency band:

[0235] In a possible implementation, the first information in-band of different frequency bands is reported respectively. That is, for different frequency bands, the following information is reported respectively: switching time between in-band downlink carriers. Optionally, switching time between consecutive in-band downlink carriers, switching time between non-consecutive in-band downlink carriers can be reported respectively.

[0236] In a possible implementation, the first information in-band of different frequency bands in the first frequency band set is reported respectively. That is, for different frequency bands in the first frequency band set, one or more of the following first information is reported respectively: switching time between any downlink carriers in the frequency band, wherein the camping downlink carrier and the to-be-measured downlink carrier are located in the same frequency band; and / or priority of any downlink carrier combination in the frequency band, and / or priority of any downlink carrier in the frequency band corresponding to other downlink carriers in the frequency band.

[0237] For example, the first frequency band set includes band1 and band2, and the first information of band1 and band2 is reported respectively. Taking band1 as an example, the user equipment can report one or more of the following first information: report switching time between any downlink carriers in band1; and / or report priority between any downlink carrier combinations in band1; and / or report priority of downlink carriers in band1 corresponding to other downlink carriers in band1. It can be understood that the reporting of band2 is similar to that of band1, which will not be described here.

[0238] Optionally, for different frequency bands in the first frequency band set, the following first information is reported respectively: switching time between the downlink carrier in the frequency band as the to-be-measured downlink carrier and the downlink carrier on other frequency bands; and / or switching time between the downlink carrier in the frequency band as the to-be-measured downlink carrier and other downlink carriers in the frequency band. Optionally, for different frequency bands in the first frequency band set, the following first information is reported respectively: switching time between the downlink carrier in the frequency band as the to-be-measured downlink carrier and other downlink carriers. It can be understood that it is not distinguished whether the other downlink carrier and the to-be-measured downlink carrier are located in the same frequency band or different frequency bands.

[0239] Optionally, the user equipment can also report, respectively, switching time required for a downlink carrier on each frequency band supported by the user equipment to switch to a downlink carrier on other frequency bands supported by the user equipment, and / or switching time required for each downlink carrier in the same frequency band of each frequency band supported by the user equipment to switch to other downlink carriers in the frequency band. At this time, the frequency bands supported by the user equipment are part or all of the frequency bands in the first frequency band set, and the downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set are part or all of the downlink carriers supported by the user equipment.

[0240] It should be noted that in the embodiment, the switching time is defined for each frequency band respectively. It can be understood that for different frequency bands, the first information includes the switching time between the downlink carriers in the frequency band, or the switching time when the downlink carriers in the frequency band are to be measured.

[0241] Optionally, the switching time between the continuous downlink carriers and the switching time between the discontinuous downlink carriers can be different, or can be defined respectively, or can be reported respectively. For example, the first information includes the switching time between the continuous downlink carriers and / or the switching time between the discontinuous downlink carriers in the frequency band. Wherein, the continuous downlink carriers refer to the downlink carriers which are continuous in the frequency domain, and the discontinuous downlink carriers refer to the downlink carriers which are discontinuous in the frequency domain.

[0242] C. Each frequency band of each frequency band combination is reported respectively:

[0243] In a possible implementation, the first information of different frequency bands in different frequency band combinations is reported respectively, and each frequency band combination contains multiple frequency bands. That is, for different frequency bands in different frequency band combinations, one or more of the following first information is reported respectively: the switching time between the downlink carriers in the frequency band in the frequency band combination, wherein the downlink carrier to be measured and the camped downlink carrier are located in the same frequency band; and / or the priority of the downlink carrier combination in the frequency band in the frequency band combination; and / or the priority of the downlink carrier in the frequency band combination to other downlink carriers in the frequency band. Optionally, the switching time between the continuous downlink carriers in the frequency band in the frequency band combination, the switching time between the discontinuous downlink carriers in the frequency band in the frequency band combination can be reported respectively.

[0244] For example, the frequency band combination 1 is {band1, band2}, the frequency band combination 2 is {band3, band4}, and the band1 and band2 first information of the frequency band combination 1 is reported respectively. Taking the band1 of the frequency band combination 1 as an example, one or more of the following first information can be reported: the switching time between the downlink carriers in the band1 is reported; and / or the priority between the downlink carrier combinations in the band1 is reported; and / or the priority of the downlink carrier in the band1 corresponding to other downlink carriers in the band1 is reported. It can be understood that the reporting of the band2 of the frequency band combination 1, the band3 of the frequency band combination 2, and the band4 of the frequency band combination 2 can refer to the example of the band1 of the frequency band combination 1, which will not be described here.

[0245] Optionally, for each frequency band in each frequency band combination, the following first information is respectively reported: a switching time between the to-be-measured downlink carrier and a downlink carrier on another frequency band when the downlink carrier in the frequency band combination is the to-be-measured downlink carrier; and / or a switching time between the to-be-measured downlink carrier and another downlink carrier in the frequency band when the downlink carrier in the frequency band combination is the to-be-measured downlink carrier. Optionally, for each frequency band in each frequency band combination, the following first information is respectively reported: a switching time between the to-be-measured downlink carrier and another downlink carrier. It can be understood that the other downlink carrier and the to-be-measured downlink carrier are located in the same frequency band or different frequency bands in the same frequency band combination, or are located in different frequency band combinations.

[0246] It should be noted that in the embodiment, the switching time is defined for each frequency band in each frequency band combination. It can be understood that, for each frequency band in each frequency band combination, the first information includes the switching time between the downlink carriers in the frequency band combination, or the switching time between the to-be-measured downlink carrier and another downlink carrier in the frequency band when the downlink carrier in the frequency band combination is the to-be-measured downlink carrier. Each frequency band combination contains a plurality of frequency bands.

[0247] Optionally, the switching time between consecutive downlink carriers and the switching time between non-consecutive downlink carriers can be different, or can be defined respectively, or can be reported respectively. For example, the first information includes the switching time between consecutive downlink carriers and / or the switching time between non-consecutive downlink carriers in the frequency band in the frequency band combination. For another example, the first information includes the switching time when any downlink carrier in the frequency band in the frequency band combination is the to-be-measured downlink carrier and is measured across consecutive carriers, and / or the switching time when the downlink carrier in the frequency band in the frequency band combination is the to-be-measured downlink carrier and is measured across non-consecutive carriers. The consecutive downlink carrier refers to the downlink carriers being consecutive in the frequency domain, and the non-consecutive downlink carrier refers to the downlink carriers being non-consecutive in the frequency domain.

[0248] D. The first information of each carrier of each frequency band in each frequency band combination is respectively reported:

[0249] In a possible implementation, the first information of different downlink carriers in different frequency bands in different frequency band combinations is respectively reported, and each frequency band combination contains a plurality of frequency bands. That is, for different downlink carriers in different frequency bands in different frequency band combinations, the following one or more first information is respectively reported: a switching time of another downlink carrier in the frequency band to the downlink carrier when each downlink carrier in the frequency band in the frequency band combination is the to-be-measured downlink carrier.

[0250] For example, the first set of frequency bands includes band1, band2, band3, band4. The frequency band combination 1 is {band1, band2}, and the frequency band combination 2 is {band3, band4}. Taking (DLCC0, DLCC1) of band1 in the frequency band combination 1 as an example, the first information of DLCC0 and DLCC1 can be reported respectively: when DLCC0 of band1 in the frequency band combination 1 is the to-be-measured downlink carrier, the switching time of DLCC1 switching to DLCC0.

[0251] It should be noted that in the embodiment, the switching time of each carrier of each frequency band of each frequency band combination is defined respectively, which can be understood as: for each downlink carrier of each frequency band in each frequency band combination, the first information includes the switching time when the downlink carrier is the to-be-measured downlink carrier. Each frequency band combination contains multiple frequency bands.

[0252] Optionally, the switching time between consecutive downlink carriers and the switching time between non-consecutive downlink carriers can be different, or can be defined respectively, or can be reported respectively. For example, the first information includes the switching time when the downlink carrier in the frequency band in the frequency band combination is the to-be-measured downlink carrier and is measured across consecutive carriers, and / or the switching time when the downlink carrier in the frequency band in the frequency band combination is the to-be-measured downlink carrier and is measured across non-consecutive carriers. Wherein, the consecutive downlink carriers refer to downlink carriers that are continuous in the frequency domain, and the non-consecutive downlink carriers refer to downlink carriers that are non-consecutive in the frequency domain.

[0253] It should be noted that the above capability information and / or different embodiments can be combined with each other. Optionally, the above capability information and different embodiments can be reported in the same user equipment capability, or in multiple user equipment capabilities. For example, in the same user equipment capability, it can be reported as different components of the same user equipment capability.

[0254] It should be noted that the first information can be reported together with the capability information in step 701, or reported separately. There is no certain order between steps 702 and 701, which can be implemented at the same time, or step 701 can be implemented first and then step 702, or step 702 can be implemented first and then step 701. It can be understood that step 702 and step 701 can be independent steps, or can be the same step. For example, the first information of step 702 can also be the capability information, and the first capability information and the second capability information can be reported in the same capability information, or in different capability information. There is also no certain order between steps 702 and steps 703, 704. Step 704 can be implemented first and then step 702.

[0255] Step 703, the network device sends the measurement information to the user equipment.

[0256] For example, when the user equipment performs the cross-carrier downlink measurement, the user equipment needs to perform the cross-carrier downlink measurement based on the configuration of the network device, that is, based on the measurement information. The measurement information includes a measurement interval. In this way, the user equipment can perform the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the downlink carrier to be measured based on the measurement information.

[0257] Optionally, the measurement information can also include measurement configuration information. Optionally, the measurement configuration information includes one or more of CSI-RS or CSI-RS resource, CSI-RS period, periodicity of CSI-RS, resource of CSI measurement report, period of CSI measurement report, periodicity of CSI measurement report, measurement interval, timer, and first interval. It can be understood that the measurement configuration information introduced below can be included in the measurement information.

[0258] When the network device configures the measurement information, according to different configuration modes of the measurement information, at least three implementation manners can be divided, which are described as follows:

[0259] 1. Configuration of periodic measurement by the network device

[0260] It can be understood that the periodic measurement refers to that the CSI-RS for measurement in the measurement configuration information is periodic, and / or the CSI measurement report is periodic.

[0261] When the user equipment accesses the network, the user equipment reports the first capability information of the user equipment to the network device. At this time, the network device can also send the measurement interval of the configured periodic measurement to the user equipment. Therefore, when the cross-carrier downlink measurement is needed, the user equipment can perform the cross-carrier downlink measurement in the corresponding measurement interval every measurement period without the triggering of other signaling.

[0262] It should be noted that when the network device configures the periodic measurement, the actual execution order of step 703 is not limited, for example, when the network device configures the periodic measurement, the network device can send the configured measurement information to the user equipment before step 702 or before step 701.

[0263] For example, when the network device configures the measurement interval and / or the CSI-RS resource, the network device can configure each downlink carrier respectively. In this way, the downlink carrier can be prevented from being frequently switched, and the network device can also configure multiple downlink carriers uniformly. This is described as follows:

[0264] A. Configure the measurement interval respectively:

[0265] The network device configures a measurement interval for each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set, that is, each downlink carrier is configured with a separate measurement interval. Optionally, the measurement intervals of different downlink carriers can be the same. Optionally, the measurement interval is a time period or total duration for performing downlink measurement on the downlink carrier. Optionally, the measurement interval is a time period or total duration including the downlink measurement on the downlink carrier and the switching interval before and after.

[0266] For example, the measurement configuration information of the measurement interval includes one or more of the time domain start position, the measurement interval time length, the time domain end position, and the period of the measurement interval. Optionally, the time domain start position can be determined based on the offset of a relative reference point, such as offset relative to SFN0. The configuration of the measurement interval time length needs to be reasonable, that is, to enable the user equipment to complete the measurement within the measurement interval time length. The specific time length is not limited here and can be determined according to the processing efficiency, measurement efficiency, etc. of different user equipment. Understandably, the time domain start position can also be a time domain position defined by the network device, which is not limited here.

[0267] Optionally, the measurement interval can include or exclude the switching time length. The switching time length refers to the time length used for the switching of the downlink receiving channel of a certain resident DLCC to a certain non-resident DLCC. When the measurement interval includes the switching time length, the user equipment does not need to perform downlink measurement within the switching time length.

[0268] Understandably, when the measurement intervals are configured separately, the time lengths of the measurement intervals can also be different. For example, when the measurement intervals of two downlink carriers are configured separately, different measurement interval time lengths can be configured.

[0269] It should be noted that the time domain start position or the time domain end position of the measurement interval of each downlink carrier can be based on the timing of the downlink carrier to be measured or based on the timing of the resident downlink carrier switched to the downlink carrier to be measured. Optionally, the configuration of the measurement interval should also consider the downlink timing and / or uplink TA between downlink carriers, which is not limited here.

[0270] Understandably, for the downlink carrier to be measured, the user equipment performs cross-carrier downlink measurement on the cross-carrier CSI-RS within the measurement interval corresponding to the downlink carrier.

[0271] B, unified configuration of measurement interval:

[0272] The network device configures a uniform measurement interval for all downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set. It can be understood that the measurement interval is the same or determined based on the same configuration information for all downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set. That is, in the uniform measurement interval, the user equipment needs to perform downlink measurement on each resident DLCC and each non-resident DLCC in the first downlink carrier set in a set rule or order. In the uniform measurement interval, when performing downlink measurement on each downlink carrier, the downlink measurement includes cross-carrier downlink measurement on the non-resident DLCC and on-carrier downlink measurement on the resident DLCC. In other words, the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the non-resident downlink carrier in the downlink carrier set and the on-carrier downlink measurement on the resident downlink carrier are performed in the same measurement interval.

[0273] Optionally, the time domain start position or the time domain end position of the uniformly configured measurement interval. Optionally, the uniformly configured measurement interval is based on the timing of the reference DLCC. Optionally, the reference DLCC is the DLCC of the primary cell Pcell, or determined according to network configuration. It can be understood that the time domain start position or the time domain end position of the measurement interval can also be based on the timing configured by the network device, or directly determined according to the indication of the network device, which is not limited here.

[0274] It can be understood that the user equipment performs downlink measurement on the CSI-RS of each downlink carrier in the measurement interval according to the configuration. Optionally, the configuration can be a measurement order or a measurement pattern, wherein the measurement order or the measurement pattern is determined based on the configuration information. Optionally, for the resident downlink carrier, the user equipment performs on-carrier CSI-RS downlink measurement on the carrier. Optionally, for the non-resident downlink carrier, the user equipment performs cross-carrier CSI-RS downlink measurement on the carrier.

[0275] C, based on the timer measurement:

[0276] As shown in FIG. 8, FIG. 8 is an example diagram of the measurement information configuration in the embodiment of the present application. Optionally, the measurement information further includes the timer of the cross-carrier downlink measurement, i.e. the length of the timer of the cross-carrier downlink measurement. Optionally, for each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set, the corresponding timer is started or restarted after the carrier completes the last cross-carrier measurement.

[0277] Optionally, the user equipment performs cross-carrier downlink measurement on the next cross-carrier CSI-RS after the timer expires on the downlink carrier to be measured, or performs cross-carrier downlink measurement on the next N cross-carrier CSI-RS after the timer expires, or performs cross-carrier downlink measurement on the cross-carrier CSI-RS in the next measurement interval after the timer expires.

[0278] Optionally, N is configured, pre-configured, pre-defined or determined according to a default value by the network device. Thus, the user equipment can perform cross-carrier downlink measurement based on the cross-carrier CSI-RS configured for the downlink carrier to be measured and the timer.

[0279] Optionally, the measurement interval is determined according to the embodiments described in A or B, which will not be repeated here. Alternatively, the measurement interval can also be determined based on other methods, which will not be limited here.

[0280] For example, when performing cross-carrier downlink measurement on the next cross-carrier CSI-RS, the measurement time length includes the time domain of the CSI-RS, the switching time required for the downlink receiving channel of the first downlink carrier to switch to the downlink carrier to be measured, and the switching time required for the downlink receiving channel to switch back to the first downlink carrier. Optionally, when performing cross-carrier downlink measurement on the next N cross-carrier CSI-RS, the measurement time length includes the time domain of the N CSI-RS, the switching time required for the downlink receiving channel of the first downlink carrier to switch to the downlink carrier to be measured when measuring the first CSI-RS, and the switching time required for the downlink receiving channel to switch back to the first downlink carrier when measuring the Nth CSI-RS.

[0281] Optionally, when the timer expires, the high layer of the user equipment sends a trigger information to the physical layer, which is used to instruct to perform cross-carrier downlink measurement. It can be understood that after receiving the trigger information, the user equipment performs cross-carrier downlink measurement in the aforementioned manner. Optionally, the trigger information includes at least one of the downlink carrier to be measured indication information, the number of CSI-RS to be measured information, the measurement time length, the measurement interval, the measurement position, etc.

[0282] Optionally, the measurement information further includes one or more of the channel state information reference signal CSI-RS or CSI-RS resource, the CSI-RS period, the periodicity of the CSI-RS, which is used for the user equipment to measure the configured CSI-RS when performing downlink measurement in the configured measurement interval.

[0283] Optionally, for each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set, the CSI-RS thereof can be configured and / or determined respectively, or can be configured uniformly. The following will be described respectively:

[0284] 1) For each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set, the downlink carrier CSI-RS and the cross-carrier CSI-RS are configured respectively:

[0285] It can be understood that the measurement information includes one or more of the CSI-RS resource, the CSI-RS period, the periodicity of the CSI-RS of the downlink carrier CSI-RS and / or the cross-carrier CSI-RS.

[0286] As shown in FIG. 9, FIG. 9 is another example diagram of measurement information configuration in the embodiments of the present application. For example, the network device configures, for each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set, a per-carrier CSI-RS and a cross-carrier CSI-RS respectively. The per-carrier CSI-RS is used for downlink measurement on the resident downlink carrier. The cross-carrier CSI-RS is used for cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier. It can be understood that, for uniformly configured measurement interval, the to-be-measured downlink carrier is a non-resident downlink carrier.

[0287] Optionally, the cross-carrier CSI-RS and the per-carrier CSI-RS can belong to different sets. For example, the period of the cross-carrier CSI-RS is greater than the period of the per-carrier CSI-RS. Or the cross-carrier CSI-RS is a subset of the per-carrier CSI-RS. Thus, the cross-carrier downlink measurement is avoided frequently, and the decline of user equipment transmission performance caused by frequent carrier switching during cross-carrier downlink measurement is alleviated. Optionally, the cross-carrier CSI-RS refers to the CSI-RS configured for cross-carrier downlink measurement, or the actually measured CSI-RS when performing cross-carrier downlink measurement.

[0288] Optionally, for the same downlink carrier, the cross-carrier CSI-RS and the per-carrier CSI-RS can be the same. That is, for the same downlink carrier, whether it is per-carrier downlink measurement or cross-carrier downlink measurement, the measured CSI-RS is determined by the network device based on the same configuration. For example, the measured CSI-RS is configured based on the same RRC parameter.

[0289] 2) For each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set, configure a per-carrier CSI-RS:

[0290] As shown in FIG. 10, FIG. 10 is another example diagram of measurement information configuration in the embodiments of the present application. In an example, the network device configures, for each downlink carrier, a per-carrier CSI-RS. Optionally, for any downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set, the cross-carrier CSI-RS is the same as the per-carrier CSI-RS. It can be understood that, in the configured CSI-RS resource, the per-carrier CSI-RS and the cross-carrier CSI-RS are not distinguished. Optionally, at this time, the per-carrier CSI-RS and the cross-carrier CSI-RS can be replaced by CSI-RS. It can be understood that, when performing per-carrier measurement or cross-carrier measurement on any downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set, the downlink measurement is performed on the CSI-RS resource.

[0291] Optionally, the measurement information further comprises a first interval, and the cross-carrier CSI-RS is determined according to the intra-carrier CSI-RS and the first interval. Optionally, the first interval is determined according to a pre-configuration, a pre-definition or a default value of the network device. For example, the first interval is X intra-carrier CSI-RSs, which is not limited here. Thus, the user equipment can perform the cross-carrier downlink measurement based on the intra-carrier CSI-RS configured to the downlink carrier to be measured and the first interval.

[0292] It should be noted that the same or different CSI-RS can refer to one or more of the same or different CSI-RS resource, CSI-RS period, and periodicity of the CSI-RS.

[0293] 2. Aperiodic measurement

[0294] It can be understood that the aperiodic measurement refers to that the CSI-RS used for measurement is aperiodic, and / or the CSI measurement report is aperiodic. Optionally, the measurement information further comprises the aperiodic CSI-RS.

[0295] For example, the network device can perform the configuration of the measurement interval in advance when performing the configuration of the aperiodic measurement, and transmit the measurement interval to the user equipment in advance. For example, before step 702, the network device can transmit the measurement interval to the user equipment through RRC signaling. The configuration of the CSI-RS resource is that the network device transmits the aperiodic CSI-RS to the user equipment when the user equipment needs to perform the cross-carrier downlink measurement, and instructs the user equipment to perform the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the aperiodic CSI-RS.

[0296] For example, the network device instructs or triggers the user equipment to perform the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the aperiodic CSI-RS through MAC CE signaling or DCI signaling. Optionally, the MAC CE signaling or the DCI signaling comprises the indication information of the aperiodic CSI-RS.

[0297] It can be understood that when the network device configures the aperiodic CSI-RS, the configuration mode of the measurement interval can refer to the configuration of the periodic measurement described above. Details are not described here. When the network device configures the aperiodic measurement, the implementation mode of the user equipment performing the cross-carrier downlink measurement according to the measurement information is described in detail in step 706, which can refer to step 706.

[0298] 3. Semi-static measurement

[0299] It should be noted that the network device can configure the measurement interval in advance when configuring the semi-static measurement, and send the measurement interval and / or the measurement information of the CSI-RS to the user equipment in advance through RRC signaling before step 702. For semi-static measurement, the network device sends the activation information to the user equipment through DCI signaling or MAC CE signaling to instruct the user equipment to perform cross-carrier downlink measurement on the CSI-RS in the measurement interval or based on the timer. Alternatively, the user equipment performs cross-carrier downlink measurement in the measurement interval or based on the timer after receiving the activation information until receiving the deactivation information or the end of the configured time period. It can be understood that other aspects can be described with reference to the periodic measurement.

[0300] It can be understood that when the network device configures semi-static measurement, the configuration of the measurement interval can be configured in the same way as the periodic measurement described above, which will not be described here. Alternatively, the determination of the cross-carrier CSI-RS can be described with reference to the related description in the periodic measurement. When the network device configures aperiodic measurement, the implementation of the user equipment performing cross-carrier downlink measurement based on the measurement information is described in detail in step 706, which can be referred to step 706.

[0301] Step 704: The user equipment determines a first downlink carrier from the set of resident downlink carriers based on the first information.

[0302] The first downlink carrier is determined by the user equipment to switch the downlink receiving channel of the first downlink carrier to the to-be-measured downlink carrier during the cross-carrier downlink measurement, interrupt the downlink communication on the first downlink carrier, and perform normal downlink communication on the second downlink carrier. Alternatively, the downlink receiving channel can refer to a downlink radio frequency channel or a downlink baseband channel, or a downlink receiving capability.

[0303] Alternatively, the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier based on the first information, which can be understood as determining the resident downlink carrier that needs to perform downlink receiving capability switching according to a preset rule, or determining the resident downlink carrier that needs to suspend downlink transmission during the cross-carrier downlink measurement, or not expecting to perform downlink reception of PDSCH / PDCCH / CSI-RS and other resources on the determined resident downlink carrier.

[0304] It should be noted that the camping downlink carrier set belongs to the first downlink carrier set. Optionally, the first downlink carrier set can be a DLCC set configured by the network device to the user equipment, or include the DLCC set configured by the network device to the user equipment and downlink carriers of a neighboring cell. Optionally, the DLCC set configured by the network device to the user equipment can further include the camping downlink carrier set and the non-camping downlink carrier set, or include the camping downlink carrier set and not include the non-camping downlink carrier set. It can be understood that the downlink carriers of the neighboring cell can refer to other to-be-measured downlink carriers or other to-be-measured frequency points or other to-be-measured cells. The following will be described in combination with the above two application scenarios:

[0305] 1. In the first application scenario, the number of DLCCs configured by the network device to the user equipment is coupled with the number of DLCCs that can be supported by the user equipment, that is, the number of DLCCs configured by the network device to the user equipment is equal to the number of DLCCs that can be supported by the user equipment, or the number of DLCCs configured by the network device to the user equipment is less than the number of DLCCs that can be supported by the user equipment.

[0306] For example, as shown in FIG. 5, the first downlink carrier set includes a DLCC set configured by the network device to the user equipment, the first downlink carrier set includes the camping downlink carrier set and the neighboring cell downlink carrier set, the neighboring cell downlink carrier set includes to-be-measured downlink carriers of the neighboring cell, and the first downlink carrier and the second downlink carrier belong to the camping downlink carrier set. When cross-carrier downlink measurement is needed, the to-be-measured downlink carriers of the neighboring cell are measured. For example, the to-be-measured downlink carriers of the neighboring cell are measured through synchronization signal and PBCH block (synchronization signal and PBCH block, SSB) to obtain the timing of the neighboring cell.

[0307] For example, the first downlink carrier set includes (DLCC 0, DLCC 1), and the neighboring cell camping downlink carrier set can include the frequency points of the neighboring cell camping DLCC. Wherein (DLCC 0, DLCC 1) are camping DLCCs and belong to the camping downlink carrier set. If the determined first downlink carrier is DLCC 0, the second downlink carrier can be DLCC 1. When cross-carrier downlink measurement of the to-be-measured downlink carrier is needed, the user equipment interrupts the downlink communication on DLCC 0 and maintains the normal communication on DLCC 1. The frequency points of the to-be-measured downlink carriers of the neighboring cell are measured, for example, the to-be-measured downlink carriers of the neighboring cell are measured through synchronization signal and PBCH block (synchronization signal and PBCH block, SSB) to obtain the timing of the neighboring cell.

[0308] 2. In the second application scenario, the number of DL CCs configured by the network device to the user equipment is decoupled from the number of DL CCs supported by the user equipment, i.e., the number of DL CCs configured by the network device to the user equipment is greater than the number of DL CCs supported by the user equipment.

[0309] For example, as shown in FIG. 6, the first downlink carrier set is the DL CC set configured by the network device to the user equipment, the first downlink carrier set includes the camping downlink carrier set and the non-camping downlink carrier set, the to-be-measured downlink carrier belongs to the non-camping downlink carrier set, and the first downlink carrier and the second downlink carrier belong to the camping downlink carrier set.

[0310] For example, the first downlink carrier set includes (DLCC 0, DLCC 1, DLCC 2, DLCC 3). Among them, (DLCC 0, DLCC 2) are camping DLCCs and belong to the camping downlink carrier set, and (DLCC 1, DLCC 3) are non-camping DLCCs. If the to-be-measured downlink carrier is DLCC 1, the determined first downlink carrier is DLCC 0, and the second downlink carrier is DLCC 2. When the cross-carrier downlink measurement of the to-be-measured downlink carrier DLCC 1 is needed, the user equipment interrupts the downlink communication on DLCC 0 and maintains the normal communication on DLCC 2. The channel condition of the to-be-measured downlink carrier is measured, for example, by measuring the channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) configured to the to-be-measured downlink carrier.

[0311] It can be understood that in the above two application scenarios, the to-be-measured downlink carrier can also be a to-be-measured frequency point, a to-be-measured cell, a to-be-measured frequency domain resource (such as a BWP or a frequency band), etc. It can be understood that the corresponding downlink carrier set and camping carrier can also be replaced accordingly. Alternatively, the to-be-measured cell is a configured but not activated Scell, or the to-be-measured cell is a configured and activated but currently not performing downlink reception Scell, or the to-be-measured frequency point is a configured other non-working frequency point. It can be understood that the reason why the configured and activated but currently not performing downlink reception can be network configuration or UE capability constraint.

[0312] It should be noted that the embodiments of the present application do not limit the concept of carrier set. The carrier set is essentially a plurality of carriers, or at least one carrier, or one or more carriers. It can be understood that the above-mentioned names can be replaced with each other. For example, the first downlink carrier set can also be one or more downlink carriers, or a plurality of downlink carriers, or at least one downlink carrier. For another example, the camping downlink carrier set can also be one or more camping downlink carriers, or a plurality of camping downlink carriers, or at least one camping downlink carrier. Other descriptions involving sets can be replaced in the same way, and will not be described here.

[0313] In the embodiments of the present application, the second application scenario in the above examples is taken as an example for detailed description, i.e., the application scenario in which the number of DL CCs configured by the network device for the user equipment is greater than the number of DL CCs supported by the user equipment. It can be understood that the following description can also be applicable to the first application scenario after adaptive replacement of some expressions.

[0314] The user equipment reports first information to the network device, wherein the first information can indicate the switching time and / or the switching priority, and when the switching time is indicated, the switching time between different carriers or different frequency bands can be indicated, and when the priority is indicated, different forms of priority can also be indicated. The following steps 7041 and 7042 are described respectively:

[0315] In step 7041, the user equipment determines a first downlink carrier from the set of camped downlink carriers based on the switching time in the first information.

[0316] In step 7042, the user equipment determines the switching time between each camped downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers and the to-be-measured downlink carrier, or determines the switching time between any two downlink carriers in the first set of downlink carriers based on the first information.

[0317] Optionally, the first downlink carrier is the camped downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers that has the shortest switching time with the to-be-measured downlink carrier.

[0318] For example, the user equipment can determine the switching time according to its own capability, and in order to improve the efficiency of cross-carrier downlink measurement, the user equipment selects the camped downlink carrier that has the shortest switching time required for switching the downlink receiving channel to the to-be-measured downlink carrier from the set of camped downlink carriers in the first set of downlink carriers to determine the first downlink carrier. It can be understood that different user equipment has different performance, and the switching time is also different, which is not limited here.

[0319] For example, the first set of downlink carriers includes DLCC 0, DLCC 1, DLCC 2, and DLCC 3. The set of camped downlink carriers includes DLCC 0 and DLCC 2. Based on the first information, the switching time between DLCC 0 and DLCC 1, the switching time between DLCC 0 and DLCC 2, the switching time between DLCC 0 and DLCC 3, the switching time between DLCC 1 and DLCC 3, the switching time between DLCC 1 and DLCC 2, and the switching time between DLCC 2 and DLCC 3 can be obtained. If the to-be-measured downlink carrier is DLCC 1, the user equipment needs to determine the first downlink carrier from the set of camped downlink carriers (DLCC 0 and DLCC 2). If the switching time required for switching DLCC 0 in the set of camped downlink carriers (DLCC 0 and DLCC 2) to DLCC 1 is the shortest, DLCC 0 is determined as the first downlink carrier.

[0320] 1、the first information is used to determine the switching time required for each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set to switch to other downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set. The first downlink carrier is the resident downlink carrier in the resident downlink carrier set that requires the shortest switching time to switch to the to-be-measured downlink carrier.

[0321] For example, the user equipment determines the switching time according to its own capability. In order to improve the efficiency of cross-carrier downlink measurement, the user equipment selects the resident downlink carrier in the resident downlink carrier set in the first downlink carrier set that requires the shortest switching time to switch the downlink receiving channel to the to-be-measured downlink carrier as the first downlink carrier. It can be understood that different user equipment has different performance, and the switching time is also different, which is not limited here.

[0322] For example, the first downlink carrier set includes DLCC 0, DLCC 1, DLCC 2, and DLCC 3. The resident downlink carrier set includes DLCC 0 and DLCC 2. In this way, the first information indicates the switching time between DLCC 0 and DLCC 1, between DLCC 0 and DLCC 2, between DLCC 0 and DLCC 3, between DLCC 1 and DLCC 3, between DLCC 1 and DLCC 2, and between DLCC 2 and DLCC 3, respectively. If the to-be-measured downlink carrier is DLCC 1, the user equipment needs to determine the first downlink carrier from the resident downlink carrier set (DLCC 0, DLCC 2). If the resident downlink carrier set (DLCC 0, DLCC 2) requires the shortest switching time to switch from DLCC 0 to DLCC 1, then DLCC 0 is determined as the first downlink carrier.

[0323] Optionally, the first information can also include the switching time required for each downlink carrier supported by the user equipment to switch to other downlink carriers in the supported downlink carriers. Optionally, the downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set are part or all of the downlink carriers supported by the user equipment, or the downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set are part or all of the downlink carriers in the frequency band supported by the user equipment, or the downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set are part or all of the downlink carriers in the frequency band in the supported frequency band combination of the user equipment.

[0324] 2、the first information is used to determine the switching time required for each downlink carrier in the first frequency band set to switch to other downlink carriers in the first frequency band set. The first downlink carrier is the resident downlink carrier in the resident downlink carrier set that requires the shortest switching time to switch to the to-be-measured downlink carrier.

[0325] For example, the first set of frequency bands includes band1, band2, wherein band1 includes DLCC 0, DLCC 1, band2 includes DLCC 3, and band3 includes DLCC 2. The set of residing downlink carriers includes DLCC 0, DLCC 2. In this way, the first information indicates the switching time between DLCC 0 on band1 and DLCC 3 on band2, the switching time between DLCC 1 on band1 and DLCC 3 on band2, the switching time between DLCC 0 on band1 and DLCC 2 on band3, and the switching time between DLCC 3 on band2 and DLCC 2 on band3, respectively. If the downlink carrier to be measured is DLCC 1, the user equipment needs to determine the first downlink carrier from the set of residing downlink carriers (DLCC 0, DLCC 2). If the switching time from DLCC 0 in the set of residing downlink carriers (DLCC 0, DLCC 2) to DLCC 1 is the shortest, DLCC 0 is determined as the first downlink carrier.

[0326] For example, the first set of frequency bands includes band1, band2, wherein band1 includes DLCC 0, DLCC 1, band2 includes DLCC 3, and band3 includes DLCC 2. The set of residing downlink carriers includes DLCC 0, DLCC 2. In this way, the first information indicates the switching time between DLCC 0 on band1 and DLCC 3 on band2, the switching time between DLCC 1 on band1 and DLCC 3 on band2, the switching time between DLCC 0 on band1 and DLCC 2 on band3, and the switching time between DLCC 3 on band2 and DLCC 2 on band3, respectively. If the downlink carrier to be measured is DLCC 1, the user equipment needs to determine the first downlink carrier from the set of residing downlink carriers (DLCC 0, DLCC 2). If the switching time from DLCC 0 in the set of residing downlink carriers (DLCC 0, DLCC 2) to DLCC 1 is the shortest, DLCC 0 is determined as the first downlink carrier.

[0327] Optionally, the first information further includes the switching time required for a downlink carrier on each of the frequency bands supported by the user equipment to switch to a downlink carrier on another of the frequency bands supported by the user equipment. Optionally, the frequency bands in which the downlink carriers in the first set of downlink carriers are located are some or all of the frequency bands supported by the user equipment, or the frequency bands in which the downlink carriers in the first set of downlink carriers are located are some or all of the frequency bands in a frequency band combination supported by the user equipment.

[0328] 3. The first information is used to determine the switching time required for each downlink carrier in each of the first set of frequency bands to switch to another downlink carrier in the same frequency band. The first downlink carrier is the residing downlink carrier in the set of residing downlink carriers that requires the shortest switching time to switch to the downlink carrier to be measured.

[0329] For example, the first frequency band set includes band1 and band2, wherein band1 includes DLCC 0, DLCC 1 and DLCC 2, and band2 includes DLCC 1 and DLCC 4. The resident downlink carrier set includes DLCC 0, DLCC 1 and DLCC 4. In this way, the first information indicates the switching time between DLCC 1 and DLCC 2, between DLCC 0 and DLCC 2, and between DLCC 0 and DLCC 1 in band1, and the switching time decreases in turn. If the downlink carrier to be measured is DLCC 1, the user equipment needs to determine the first downlink carrier from the resident downlink carrier set (DLCC 0, DLCC 1 and DLCC 4). Since the resident downlink carrier set (DLCC 0, DLCC 1 and DLCC 4) requires the shortest switching time for switching from DLCC 0 to DLCC 1, DLCC 0 is determined as the first downlink carrier.

[0330] For example, the first frequency band set includes band1 and band2, wherein band1 includes DLCC 0, DLCC 1 and DLCC 2, and band2 includes DLCC 1 and DLCC 4. The resident downlink carrier set includes DLCC 0, DLCC 1 and DLCC 4. In this way, the first information indicates the switching time between DLCC 1 and DLCC 2, between DLCC 0 and DLCC 2, and between DLCC 0 and DLCC 1 in band1, and the switching time decreases in turn. If the downlink carrier to be measured is DLCC 1, the user equipment needs to determine the first downlink carrier from the resident downlink carrier set (DLCC 0, DLCC 1 and DLCC 4). Since the resident downlink carrier set (DLCC 0, DLCC 1 and DLCC 4) requires the shortest switching time for switching from DLCC 0 to DLCC 1, DLCC 0 is determined as the first downlink carrier.

[0331] Optionally, the first information can further include the switching time required for each downlink carrier in each frequency band supported by the user equipment to switch to other downlink carriers in the same frequency band. Optionally, the frequency bands in which the downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set are located are part or all of the frequency bands supported by the user equipment, or the frequency bands in which the downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set are located are part or all of the frequency bands in the frequency band combination supported by the user equipment.

[0332] Based on the above description of the implementation of the first information that can be reported in step 702, the first information includes the switching time, and the user equipment can determine the first downlink carrier based on different manners. The following will be described respectively:

[0333] A. For each frequency band combination, the first information includes the switching time between the downlink carriers in each frequency band in the frequency band combination, and / or the switching time between the downlink carriers in different frequency bands in the frequency band combination, and / or the switching time between any downlink carriers in any frequency band in the frequency band combination. The first downlink carrier set includes the resident downlink carrier set and / or the downlink carrier to be measured, and the downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set are located in part or all of the frequency bands in the first frequency band set.

[0334] Optionally, the first frequency band set comprises one or more frequency band combinations, each of which comprises a plurality of frequency bands. For each frequency band combination, the first information comprises switching time between any downlink carriers in any frequency band within the frequency band combination. When determining the first downlink carrier, the first downlink carrier is the downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers that is in the same frequency band combination as the to-be-measured downlink carrier and has the shortest switching time to the to-be-measured downlink carrier.

[0335] Optionally, the first frequency band set comprises one or more frequency band combinations, each of which comprises a plurality of frequency bands. For each frequency band combination, the first information comprises switching time between downlink carriers in different frequency bands within the frequency band combination. When determining the first downlink carrier, the first downlink carrier is the downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers that is in a different frequency band within the same frequency band combination as the to-be-measured downlink carrier and has the shortest switching time to the to-be-measured downlink carrier.

[0336] Optionally, the first frequency band set comprises one or more frequency band combinations, each of which comprises a plurality of frequency bands. For each frequency band combination, the first information comprises switching time between any downlink carriers in any frequency band within the frequency band combination. When determining the first downlink carrier, the first downlink carrier is the downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers that is in the same frequency band combination as the to-be-measured downlink carrier and has the shortest switching time to the to-be-measured downlink carrier.

[0337] It can be understood that the explanation of the first information can refer to the related introduction in step 702, which will not be repeated here.

[0338] B. For each frequency band, the first information comprises switching time between any downlink carriers in the frequency band.

[0339] Optionally, the first frequency band set comprises a plurality of frequency bands. For different frequency bands in the first frequency band set, the first information comprises switching time between any downlink carriers in the frequency band. When determining the first downlink carrier, the first downlink carrier is the downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers that is in the same frequency band as the to-be-measured downlink carrier and has the shortest switching time to the to-be-measured downlink carrier. The first downlink carrier set comprises the set of camped downlink carriers and / or the set of to-be-measured downlink carriers, and the downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set are located in part or all of the frequency bands in the first frequency band set.

[0340] It can be understood that the explanation of the first information can refer to the related introduction in step 702, which will not be repeated here.

[0341] C. For each frequency band within each frequency band combination, the first information comprises switching time between downlink carriers within the frequency band in the frequency band combination.

[0342] Optionally, the first frequency band set comprises one or more frequency band combinations, each frequency band combination comprising a plurality of frequency bands. For different frequency bands in different frequency band combinations, the first information comprises switching time between downlink carriers within the frequency band in the frequency band combination. When determining the first downlink carrier, the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier from the set of camped downlink carriers as the one that is in the same frequency band in the same frequency band combination as the to-be-measured downlink carrier and requires the shortest switching time to switch to the to-be-measured downlink carrier.

[0343] Optionally, the first downlink carrier set comprises the set of camped downlink carriers and / or the set of to-be-measured downlink carriers, and downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set are located on part or all of the frequency bands in the first frequency band set.

[0344] D. For each downlink carrier in each frequency band within each frequency band combination, the first information comprises switching time between the downlink carrier and other downlink carriers in the frequency band in the frequency band combination.

[0345] Optionally, the first frequency band set comprises one or more frequency band combinations, each frequency band combination comprising a plurality of frequency bands, and each frequency band comprises one or more downlink carriers. For different downlink carriers in different frequency bands in different frequency band combinations, the first information comprises switching time between the downlink carrier and other downlink carriers in the frequency band in the frequency band combination when the downlink carrier is the to-be-measured downlink carrier. When determining the first downlink carrier, the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier from the set of camped downlink carriers as the one that is in the same frequency band in the same frequency band combination as the to-be-measured downlink carrier and requires the shortest switching time to switch to the to-be-measured downlink carrier.

[0346] Optionally, the first downlink carrier set comprises the set of camped downlink carriers and / or the set of to-be-measured downlink carriers, and downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set are located on part or all of the frequency bands in the first frequency band set.

[0347] Step 7042, the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier based on the priority of each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set.

[0348] Optionally, the user equipment determines the priority of the combination of each of the set of camped downlink carriers and the to-be-measured downlink carrier, or the priority of the combination of any two downlink carriers in the first set of downlink carriers, based on the first information. Optionally, the user equipment determines the priority of each of the set of camped downlink carriers corresponding to any one of the to-be-measured downlink carrier, or the priority of the other downlink carriers in the first set of downlink carriers corresponding to any one of the first set of downlink carriers, based on the first information.

[0349] Optionally, the priority of each of the first set of downlink carriers can be reported in the manner of per frequency band, per frequency band combination, per frequency band of per frequency band combination, and / or per downlink carrier of per frequency band of per frequency band combination. For details, refer to the related description of step 702, which will not be repeated here.

[0350] Optionally, the first information is used to determine the priority of the combination of each of the first set of downlink carriers. Optionally, the first downlink carrier is the camped downlink carrier in the downlink carrier combination containing the camped downlink carrier with the highest priority. Optionally, the highest priority means that the first downlink carrier is determined to have the highest priority. Optionally, the first downlink carrier is the camped downlink carrier in the downlink carrier combination containing the camped downlink carrier with the lowest priority. Optionally, the lowest priority means the lowest priority for maintaining communication.

[0351] Optionally, the first information is used to determine the priority of the other downlink carriers in the first set of downlink carriers corresponding to each of the first set of downlink carriers. Optionally, the first downlink carrier is the camped downlink carrier with the highest priority among the other downlink carriers corresponding to the to-be-measured downlink carrier. Optionally, the highest priority means that the first downlink carrier is determined to have the highest priority. Optionally, the first downlink carrier can also be the camped downlink carrier with the lowest priority among the other downlink carriers corresponding to the to-be-measured downlink carrier. Optionally, the lowest priority means the lowest priority for maintaining communication.

[0352] The following will be further described through specific examples.

[0353] Based on the related description of the implementation of the first information that can be reported separately in step 702, the first information also includes different priorities, and the user equipment can also determine the first downlink carrier based on the different priorities. The following will be described separately.

[0354] It can be understood that the explanation of the first information can refer to the related description in step 702, which will not be repeated here.

[0355] A. First information based on each frequency band combination:

[0356] a、Optionally, the first set of frequency bands comprises one or more frequency band combinations, each of which comprises a plurality of frequency bands, and any two downlink carriers on any frequency band in a frequency band combination form a downlink carrier combination. For each frequency band combination, the first information comprises the priority of the downlink carrier combination in any frequency band within the frequency band combination and / or the priority of the downlink carrier in any frequency band within the frequency band combination and / or the priority of the downlink carrier in any frequency band corresponding to the priority of the downlink carrier in other frequency bands.

[0357] Optionally, when the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier, the first downlink carrier is a camping downlink carrier in any frequency band in the same frequency band combination as the to-be-measured downlink carrier and forms a downlink carrier combination with the to-be-measured downlink carrier, wherein the highest priority refers to the highest priority of the first downlink carrier. Optionally, the first downlink carrier is a camping downlink carrier in any frequency band in the same frequency band combination as the to-be-measured downlink carrier and forms a downlink carrier combination with the to-be-measured downlink carrier, wherein the lowest priority refers to the lowest priority of the first downlink carrier.

[0358] Optionally, the first downlink carrier can also be a camping downlink carrier corresponding to the highest priority of the to-be-measured downlink carrier in any frequency band in the same frequency band combination as the to-be-measured downlink carrier, wherein the highest priority refers to the lowest priority of the first downlink carrier. The first downlink carrier can also be a camping downlink carrier corresponding to the lowest priority of the to-be-measured downlink carrier in any frequency band in the same frequency band combination as the to-be-measured downlink carrier, wherein the lowest priority refers to the lowest priority of the first downlink carrier.

[0359] b、Optionally, the first set of frequency bands comprises one or more frequency band combinations, each of which comprises a plurality of frequency bands, and any two downlink carriers in the same frequency band in each frequency band combination form a downlink carrier combination. For each frequency band combination, the first information comprises the priority of the downlink carrier combination in any frequency band within the frequency band combination and / or the priority of the downlink carrier in any frequency band within the frequency band combination and / or the priority of the downlink carrier in any frequency band corresponding to the priority of the downlink carrier in other frequency bands.

[0360] Optionally, the first information comprises a priority of a downlink carrier combination in any frequency band within a frequency band combination, and the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier as: a camped downlink carrier on a same frequency band as the to-be-measured downlink carrier in a same frequency band combination, and a downlink carrier combination with the to-be-measured downlink carrier has a highest priority, wherein the highest priority means that the first downlink carrier has the highest priority. Optionally, the first downlink carrier can also be: a camped downlink carrier on a same frequency band as the to-be-measured downlink carrier in a same frequency band combination, and a downlink carrier combination with the to-be-measured downlink carrier has a lowest priority, wherein the lowest priority means that the first downlink carrier has the lowest priority.

[0361] Optionally, the first information comprises a priority of a downlink carrier corresponding to other downlink carriers in any frequency band within a frequency band combination, and the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier as: a camped downlink carrier on a same frequency band as the to-be-measured downlink carrier in a same frequency band combination, and a downlink carrier corresponding to the to-be-measured downlink carrier has a highest priority, wherein the highest priority means that the first downlink carrier has the highest priority. Optionally, the first downlink carrier can also be: a camped downlink carrier on a same frequency band as the to-be-measured downlink carrier in a same frequency band combination, and a downlink carrier corresponding to the to-be-measured downlink carrier has a lowest priority, wherein the lowest priority means that the first downlink carrier has the lowest priority.

[0362] c. Optionally, the first frequency band set comprises one or more frequency band combinations, each frequency band combination comprises a plurality of frequency bands, and two downlink carriers in different frequency bands in each frequency band combination form a downlink carrier combination. For different frequency bands in different frequency band combinations, the first information comprises a priority of a downlink carrier combination in any frequency band within the frequency band combination, and / or a priority of a downlink carrier in any frequency band corresponding to a downlink carrier in another frequency band within the frequency band combination.

[0363] Optionally, the first information comprises a priority of a downlink carrier combination in any frequency band within a frequency band combination, and the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier as: a camped downlink carrier on a same frequency band as the to-be-measured downlink carrier in a same frequency band combination, and a downlink carrier combination with the to-be-measured downlink carrier has a highest priority, wherein the highest priority means that the first downlink carrier has the highest priority. Optionally, the first downlink carrier can also be: a camped downlink carrier on a same frequency band as the to-be-measured downlink carrier in a same frequency band combination, and a downlink carrier combination with the to-be-measured downlink carrier has a lowest priority, wherein the lowest priority means that the first downlink carrier has the lowest priority.

[0364] Optionally, the first information comprises a priority of a downlink carrier in any frequency band in the frequency band combination corresponding to a downlink carrier in another frequency band. When determining the first downlink carrier, the first downlink carrier is a camped downlink carrier in a different frequency band in the same frequency band combination as the to-be-measured downlink carrier, and corresponds to the to-be-measured downlink carrier with the highest priority, wherein the highest priority means that the first downlink carrier is determined to have the highest priority. Optionally, the first downlink carrier can also be a camped downlink carrier in a different frequency band in the same frequency band combination as the to-be-measured downlink carrier, and corresponds to the to-be-measured downlink carrier with the lowest priority, wherein the lowest priority means that the first downlink carrier is determined to have the lowest priority.

[0365] B, based on the first information of each frequency band:

[0366] Optionally, the first frequency band set comprises one or more frequency bands, and two downlink carriers in the same frequency band form a downlink carrier combination. For each frequency band combination, the first information comprises a priority of a downlink carrier combination in any frequency band, and / or a priority of a downlink carrier in any frequency band corresponding to a downlink carrier in another frequency band in the same frequency band.

[0367] Optionally, the first information comprises a priority of a downlink carrier combination in any frequency band, and when determining the first downlink carrier, the first downlink carrier is a camped downlink carrier in the same frequency band as the to-be-measured downlink carrier, and forms a downlink carrier combination with the to-be-measured downlink carrier with the highest priority, wherein the highest priority means that the first downlink carrier is determined to have the highest priority. Optionally, the first downlink carrier can also be a camped downlink carrier in the same frequency band as the to-be-measured downlink carrier, and forms a downlink carrier combination with the to-be-measured downlink carrier with the lowest priority, wherein the lowest priority means that the first downlink carrier is determined to have the lowest priority.

[0368] Optionally, the first information comprises a priority of a downlink carrier in any frequency band corresponding to a downlink carrier in another frequency band in the same frequency band. When determining the first downlink carrier, the first downlink carrier is a camped downlink carrier in the same frequency band as the to-be-measured downlink carrier, and corresponds to the to-be-measured downlink carrier with the highest priority, wherein the highest priority means that the first downlink carrier is determined to have the highest priority. Optionally, the first downlink carrier can also be a camped downlink carrier in the same frequency band as the to-be-measured downlink carrier, and corresponds to the to-be-measured downlink carrier with the lowest priority, wherein the lowest priority means that the first downlink carrier is determined to have the lowest priority.

[0369] C, based on the first information of each frequency band in each frequency band combination:

[0370] Optionally, the first information includes a priority of a downlink carrier combination in a frequency band in a frequency band combination, and / or a priority of a downlink carrier corresponding to other downlink carriers in the frequency band in the frequency band combination.

[0371] Optionally, the first information includes a priority of a downlink carrier combination in a frequency band in a frequency band combination, and / or a priority of a downlink carrier corresponding to other downlink carriers in the frequency band in the frequency band combination.

[0372] Optionally, the first information includes a priority of a downlink carrier combination in a frequency band in a frequency band combination, and / or a priority of a downlink carrier corresponding to other downlink carriers in the frequency band in the frequency band combination.

[0373] D, based on the first information of each carrier in each frequency band in each frequency band combination:

[0374] Optionally, the first information includes a priority of a downlink carrier combination in a frequency band in a frequency band combination, and / or a priority of a downlink carrier corresponding to other downlink carriers in the frequency band in the frequency band combination.

[0375] Optionally, when the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier, the first downlink carrier is: a downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers, which is in the same frequency band as the downlink carrier to be measured in the same frequency band combination, and which is the downlink carrier with the highest priority in the downlink carrier combination containing the downlink carrier to be measured. The highest priority means that the first downlink carrier has the highest priority. Optionally, the first downlink carrier is: a downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers, which is in the same frequency band as the downlink carrier to be measured in the same frequency band combination, and which is the downlink carrier with the lowest priority in the downlink carrier combination containing the downlink carrier to be measured. The lowest priority means that the downlink carrier has the lowest priority to maintain normal communication.

[0376] Optionally, when the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier, the first downlink carrier is: a downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers, which is in the same frequency band as the downlink carrier to be measured in the same frequency band combination, and which corresponds to the downlink carrier to be measured with the highest priority. The highest priority means that the first downlink carrier has the highest priority. Optionally, the first downlink carrier is: a downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers, which is in the same frequency band as the downlink carrier to be measured in the same frequency band combination, and which corresponds to the downlink carrier to be measured with the lowest priority. The lowest priority means that the downlink carrier has the lowest priority to maintain normal communication.

[0377] Optionally, the first downlink carrier set includes the set of camped downlink carriers and / or the set of downlink carriers to be measured, and the downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set are located in part or all of the frequency bands in the first frequency band set.

[0378] The following is an example of the highest priority being the highest priority of the first downlink carrier determined. The priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first downlink carrier set can have multiple forms, such as the following three forms:

[0379] As shown in FIG. 11, FIG. 11 is a form of priority in an embodiment of the present application. A multi-level structure of the priority form is shown. Optionally, the downlink carriers included in each downlink carrier combination of each level include all downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set. For example: for each downlink carrier combination of “DLCC 0, DLCC 1”, “DLCC 2, DLCC 3”, “DLCC 0, DLCC 2”, “DLCC 1, DLCC 3”, “DLCC 0, DLCC 3”, “DLCC 1, DLCC 2”. In the multi-level structure, the first level is “DLCC 0, DLCC 1”, “DLCC 2, DLCC 3”, the second level is “DLCC 0, DLCC 2”, “DLCC 1, DLCC 3”, and the third level is “DLCC 0, DLCC 3”, “DLCC 1, DLCC 2”, and the priority decreases level by level.

[0380] As shown in FIG. 12, FIG. 12 is another form of priority in the embodiment of the present application. The priority form of the first level structure is shown. The "DLCC 0, DLCC 1", "DLCC 2, DLCC 3", "DLCC 0, DLCC 2", "DLCC 1, DLCC 3", "DLCC 0, DLCC 3", "DLCC 1, DLCC 2" are each downlink carrier combination. In the first level structure, the switching priority of the above-mentioned downlink carrier combination "DLCC 0, DLCC 1", "DLCC 2, DLCC 3", "DLCC 0, DLCC 2", "DLCC 1, DLCC 3", "DLCC 0, DLCC 3", "DLCC 1, DLCC 2" decreases in turn. For example, if the downlink carrier to be measured is DLCC 1, the user equipment searches the priority relationship level by level, and considers that DLCC 0 is determined as the first downlink carrier with the highest priority. Or it is understood that the switching time required for the downlink receiving channel of DLCC 0 to switch to DLCC 1 is the shortest, and if DLCC 0 is the current camped DLCC, the first downlink carrier is determined as DLCC 0.

[0381] As shown in FIG. 13, FIG. 13 is another form of priority in the embodiment of the present application. The priority form of the chain level structure is shown, and the priority of the first downlink carrier is arranged from high to low. Among them, the priority of the other downlink carriers corresponding to "DLCC 0" is "DLCC 1", "DLCC 2", "DLCC 3"; the priority of the other downlink carriers corresponding to "DLCC 1" is "DLCC 0", "DLCC 3", "DLCC 2"; the priority relationship of the other downlink carriers corresponding to "DLCC 2" is "DLCC 3", "DLCC 0", "DLCC 1"; the priority relationship of the other downlink carriers corresponding to "DLCC 3" is "DLCC 2", "DLCC 1", "DLCC 0". For example, when it is determined that the downlink carrier to be measured is DLCC 1, the user equipment searches the priority "DLCC 0", "DLCC 3", "DLCC 2" in turn, and the priority decreases in turn. It is considered that DLCC 0 is determined as the first downlink carrier with the highest priority, and if DLCC 0 is the camped DLCC, the camped DLCC 0 is determined as the first downlink carrier. If DLCC 0 is the non-camped DLCC, the next priority, i.e. DLCC 3, will be continued to be queried, and if DLCC 3 is the camped DLCC, the camped DLCC 3 is determined as the first downlink carrier.

[0382] Optionally, the priority can be a specific priority. For example, DLCC0 is priority 1, DLCC1 is priority 2, and DLCC2 is priority 3. Alternatively, the priority is a priority order. It can be understood that the priority order of the downlink carrier combination or the downlink carrier refers to the downlink carrier combination or the downlink carrier from high to low or from low to high. For example, taking high to low as an example, DLCC0, DLCC1, DLCC2, indicates that the priority order from high to low is DLCC0, DLCC1, DLCC2.

[0383] It should be noted that, as shown in FIG. 11 and FIG. 12, the priority form does not have a specific direction for the downlink carrier in one downlink carrier combination. That is, for example, "DLCC 0, DLCC 1" can represent the switching time required for the downlink receiving channel of DLCC 0 to switch to DLCC 1, or the switching time required for the downlink receiving channel of DLCC 1 to switch to DLCC 0, which is not limited here.

[0384] It can be understood that the above three priority forms are only examples, and in addition to this, the priority form can also be other forms, which are not limited here.

[0385] It can be understood that the granularity of the definition of the first information, such as the definition of each band combination, can also be defined per band, or per band per band combination, or per carrier per band per band combination, and the specific description of the granularity of the first information reporting in step 702 can be referred to.

[0386] In another possible implementation, the user equipment can also determine the first downlink carrier based on the second information of the network equipment. For the explanation of the second information and how to determine the first downlink carrier based on the second information of the network equipment, please refer to the introduction of the network configuration information in step 1403 and the second information in step 1404 in Embodiment Two.

[0387] In another possible implementation, in addition to determining the first downlink carrier from the downlink carrier set based on the first information or the second information of the network equipment, the user equipment can also determine the first downlink carrier according to a preset rule between the network equipment and the user equipment. For the explanation of the preset rule and the specific implementation process of determining the first downlink carrier based on the preset rule, please refer to the detailed description in Embodiment Three.

[0388] It should be noted that the first downlink carrier determined based on the above method is the resident DLCC, and the second downlink carrier belongs to one or more of the other resident DLCCs in the downlink carrier set except the first downlink carrier. That is, when there are multiple to-be-measured downlink carriers that need to be measured, there are multiple first downlink carriers corresponding to the multiple to-be-measured downlink carriers respectively, and then the second downlink carrier is the other downlink carrier in the resident downlink carrier set except the multiple first downlink carriers corresponding to the multiple to-be-measured downlink carriers.

[0389] For example, the first downlink carrier set includes the resident downlink carrier set (DLCC 0, DLCC 1, DLCC 2, DLCC 3, DLCC 4). There are two to-be-measured downlink carriers, which are DLCC 1 and DLCC 3 respectively. That is, the first downlink carrier determined for the to-be-measured downlink carrier DLCC 1 is DLCC 0, and the first downlink carrier determined for the to-be-measured downlink carrier DLCC 3 is DLCC 2. Then, if the two to-be-measured downlink carriers perform cross-carrier downlink measurement at the same time or the measurement interval time domain positions partially overlap, during the cross-carrier measurement, the downlink receiving channels of DLCC 0 and DLCC 2 will be switched to the corresponding to-be-measured downlink carriers, at this time the communication of DLCC 0 and DLCC 2 is interrupted. At this time, the second downlink carrier is the other resident DLCC in the resident downlink carrier set except the first downlink carrier corresponding to the to-be-measured downlink carrier, that is, DLCC 4, and the normal communication on DLCC 4 is maintained.

[0390] Step 705, the network device determines the first downlink carrier from the resident downlink carrier set of the user equipment based on the first information.

[0391] Optionally, the network device can determine the first downlink carrier based on the first information reported by the user equipment. Optionally, the manner in which the network device determines the first downlink carrier based on the first information reported by the user equipment can refer to the manner in which the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier based on the first information in step 704, which will not be described here. In this way, the alignment between the network device and the user equipment during cross-carrier downlink measurement is achieved. The network device can know how the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier, or in other words, the network device can know which resident downlink carrier needs to be suspended by the user equipment during cross-carrier downlink measurement.

[0392] For example, after determining the to-be-measured downlink carrier, when the user equipment decides how to determine the first downlink carrier, the network device can determine the first downlink carrier from the first downlink carrier set based on the switching time required for switching from each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set to other downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set, the switching time required for switching from each frequency band in the first frequency band set to other frequency bands in the first frequency band set, the priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first downlink carrier set, or the priority of other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set.

[0393] It can be understood that the detailed implementation of the network device determining the first downlink carrier based on the first information can refer to the related description of the first information in steps 702 and 703 and the related description of the implementation of the user equipment determining the first downlink carrier based on the first information. Here, no longer be described.

[0394] Optionally, when the network device decides how to determine the first downlink carrier, the network device can also determine based on the configuration information of the network device. For the explanation of the second information and how to determine the first downlink carrier based on the network configuration information of the network device, refer to the related description in steps 1403 and 1404 in Embodiment Two.

[0395] Optionally, in addition to determining the first downlink carrier from the downlink carrier set based on the first information or the second information of the network device, the user equipment can also determine the first downlink carrier according to the preset rule between the network device and the user equipment. For the explanation of the preset rule and the specific implementation process of determining the first downlink carrier based on the preset rule, refer to the detailed description in Embodiment Three.

[0396] Step 706, the user equipment performs cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier based on the measurement information.

[0397] For example, when cross-carrier downlink measurement is required, the user equipment can perform cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier based on the measurement information configured by the network device. And during the cross-carrier downlink measurement, suspend the downlink communication on the determined first downlink carrier, and maintain the downlink communication between the user equipment and the network device on the second downlink carrier in the camping downlink carrier set. Optionally, suspending the downlink communication on the first downlink carrier includes stopping, pausing, or interrupting the downlink communication on the first downlink carrier. Optionally, maintaining the downlink communication on the second downlink carrier in the camping downlink carrier set can be understood as not affecting the downlink communication on the second downlink carrier in the camping downlink carrier set.

[0398] Based on the detailed description of the measurement information in step 703, when the network device configures the measurement interval and / or the CSI-RS resource, the user equipment performs the cross-carrier downlink measurement in different ways under different configurations. The following describes how the user equipment performs the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the downlink carrier to be measured based on the measurement information according to the description of the measurement information in step 703:

[0399] Optionally, the measurement information can also be measurement configuration information. Optionally, the measurement information includes one or more of the CSI-RS or CSI-RS resource, the CSI-RS period, the periodicity of the CSI-RS, the resource of the CSI report, the period of the CSI report, the periodicity of the CSI report, the measurement interval, the timer, and the first interval. Optionally, the configuration information mentioned below can be included in the measurement information. Details are described later.

[0400] 1. If the network device configures periodic measurement:

[0401] A. In the case where the network device separately configures the measurement interval;

[0402] For example, each downlink carrier of the user equipment is configured with a separate measurement interval.

[0403] Optionally, if the network device separately configures the cross-carrier CSI-RS and the per-carrier CSI-RS for each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set. When the user equipment performs the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the downlink carrier to be measured, the user equipment can directly perform the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the cross-carrier CSI-RS configured for the downlink carrier to be measured in the measurement interval corresponding to the downlink carrier to be measured. The cross-carrier CSI-RS is used for cross-carrier downlink measurement on the downlink carrier to be measured. Optionally, the user equipment can perform cross-carrier downlink measurement and per-carrier downlink measurement according to the period of the configured cross-carrier CSI-RS and the period of the per-carrier CSI-RS. The period of the cross-carrier CSI-RS is less than the period of the cross-carrier CSI-RS.

[0404] Optionally, if the network device configures the per-carrier CSI-RS for each downlink carrier, i.e., for any downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set, the cross-carrier CSI-RS is the same as the per-carrier CSI-RS. Optionally, the measurement information further includes the first interval, and the cross-carrier CSI-RS is determined according to the per-carrier CSI-RS and the first interval. The user equipment can perform the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the downlink carrier to be measured according to the per-carrier CSI-RS and the first interval in the measurement interval configured for the downlink carrier to be measured. For example, the first interval is X per-carrier CSI-RS.

[0405] It can be understood that the configuration of measurement interval and cross-carrier CSI-RS can refer to the detailed description in step 703, which will not be repeated here.

[0406] B, in the case of network equipment unified configuration measurement interval:

[0407] For example, the network equipment configures the unified measurement interval for all downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set. It can be understood that the measurement interval is the same or determined based on the same configuration information for all downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set. The unified measurement interval is used for the user equipment to perform downlink measurement on each resident DLCC and each non-resident DLCC in the first downlink carrier set in a set rule or order, including downlink measurement and cross-carrier downlink measurement. When the user equipment needs to perform cross-carrier downlink measurement, it needs to wait according to the set rule or order.

[0408] Optionally, the network equipment configures the downlink carrier CSI-RS and the cross-carrier CSI-RS for each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set. The user equipment performs downlink measurement on the cross-carrier CSI-RS of each downlink carrier in the unified configuration measurement interval. Optionally, the configuration can be according to the measurement order or the measurement pattern, wherein the measurement order or the measurement pattern is determined based on the configuration information. Optionally, for the resident downlink carrier, the user equipment performs downlink measurement on the downlink carrier CSI-RS of the carrier. Optionally, for the non-resident downlink carrier, the user equipment performs downlink measurement on the cross-carrier CSI-RS of the carrier.

[0409] Optionally, the network equipment configures the downlink carrier CSI-RS for each downlink carrier, that is, for any downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set, the cross-carrier CSI-RS is the same as the downlink carrier CSI-RS. Optionally, the measurement information further includes a first interval, and the cross-carrier CSI-RS is determined based on the downlink carrier CSI-RS and the first interval. The user equipment can perform cross-carrier downlink measurement on the downlink carrier to be measured according to the downlink carrier CSI-RS and the first interval in the unified configuration measurement interval. For example, the first interval is X downlink carrier CSI-RS.

[0410] It can be understood that the configuration of measurement interval and cross-carrier CSI-RS can refer to the detailed description in step 703, which will not be repeated here.

[0411] C, in the case of timer-based measurement:

[0412] Optionally, the network device is configured with a timer, and when the timer is started, the user equipment performs cross-carrier downlink measurement on the next cross-carrier CSI-RS after the expiration of the timer on the downlink carrier to be measured, or performs cross-carrier downlink measurement on the next N cross-carrier CSI-RS after the expiration of the timer, or performs cross-carrier downlink measurement on the cross-carrier CSI-RS in the next measurement interval after the expiration of the timer. Optionally, for each downlink carrier in the first set of downlink carriers, the corresponding timer is started or restarted after the completion of the last cross-carrier measurement on the carrier.

[0413] For example, when the timer expires, the user equipment performs cross-carrier downlink measurement on the next cross-carrier CSI-RS on the downlink carrier to be measured, and reports the CSI report. Optionally, when the measurement is completed, the downlink receiving channel of the downlink carrier to be measured is switched back to the first downlink carrier, and the timer is reset. Or after the reporting of the CSI report is completed, the timer is reset.

[0414] Optionally, the user equipment can measure one CRI-RS every other time period, or measure a plurality of CSI-RSs in succession, which is not limited here. Optionally, the user equipment can also measure one or more CSI-RSs in a time period each time it performs cross-carrier downlink measurement, which is not limited here. Optionally, at least one of the starting time domain position, the ending time domain position, and the time length of the time period is determined according to the configuration of the network device.

[0415] It can be understood that the configuration of the measurement interval and the cross-carrier CSI-RS can be referred to the detailed description in step 703, which will not be repeated here.

[0416] 2. If the network device performs non-periodic measurement:

[0417] For example, unlike periodic measurement, the user equipment performs cross-carrier downlink measurement on the non-periodic CSI-RS configured for the downlink carrier to be measured according to the indication or triggering of the MAC CE signaling or DCI signaling sent by the network device.

[0418] It can be understood that the user equipment can perform cross-carrier downlink measurement on the downlink carrier to be measured in the next configured measurement interval after receiving the triggering signal or indication, or can perform cross-carrier downlink measurement on the next or N configured cross-carrier CSI-RS resources.

[0419] It can be understood that the configuration of the measurement interval and the cross-carrier CSI-RS can be referred to the detailed description in step 703, which will not be repeated here.

[0420] 3. If the network device configures semi-static measurement

[0421] Similar to the aperiodic measurement, the semi-persistent measurement also needs to be triggered, and the user equipment will perform the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier only when triggered.

[0422] For example, when the user equipment receives the activation information sent by the network equipment, the user equipment performs the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the CSI-RS of the to-be-measured downlink carrier based on the measurement interval configured by the network equipment. The user equipment can end the cross-carrier downlink measurement in the measurement interval when receiving the deactivation information. The user equipment can also end the cross-carrier downlink measurement in the measurement interval when the configured measurement time length ends or before the configured timer expires. The activation information or the deactivation information is carried in the MAC CE signaling or the DCI signaling. It can be understood that the configuration of the measurement interval and the cross-carrier CSI-RS can be referred to the detailed description in step 703, which will not be repeated here.

[0423] It can be understood that when the user equipment performs the measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier, the user equipment can measure the CSI-RS, and can also measure the synchronization signal and physical broadcast channel block SSB, and can also measure other downlink channels / signals. In this application, the CSI-RS is taken as an example for description, and the protected method is also applicable to the SSB or other downlink channels or downlink signals. It can be understood that if the SSB is measured, the measurement report is reported instead of the CSI report. Alternatively, the measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier can be used for one or more of the channel conditions of the downlink carrier, the wireless resource management, the synchronization, the beam management, etc.

[0424] Alternatively, when the user equipment does not meet the condition of no measurement interval gap, the user equipment needs to perform the cross-carrier downlink measurement in the measurement interval. For example, when the frequency point of the to-be-measured downlink carrier is covered by the activated part of the bandwidth BWP, the to-be-measured downlink carrier does not need the measurement gap and does not need to interrupt the communication of all downlink carriers to perform the cross-carrier downlink measurement.

[0425] It should be noted that the resident DLCC and the non-resident DLCC are attributes of the DLCCs in the first downlink carrier set, and are not specific to a certain DLCC. Since the resident DLCC and the non-resident DLCC are flexibly switched as needed, the utilization rate of the DLCCs configured by the network device is improved, and better communication is achieved. That is, each downlink carrier is not fixed as a resident attribute or a non-resident attribute. For example, in the above example, (DLCC 0, DLCC 2) are resident DLCCs, and (DLCC 1, DLCC 3) are non-resident DLCCs. If a carrier switch occurs, for example, after cross-carrier downlink measurement, it is considered that the channel condition on the DLCC 1 is better than the channel condition on the DLCC 0, then the DLCC 0 can be deactivated and the DLCC 1 is activated, at this time (DLCC 1, DLCC 2) are resident DLCCs, and (DLCC 0, DLCC 3) are non-resident DLCCs.

[0426] It should be noted that the above steps 701-706 are only to illustrate the steps that need to be performed, and there is no certain order between the steps, and the embodiments of the present application do not constrain the execution order. It can be understood that the above steps are not all necessary to be executed, and part or all of the steps can be executed, and the above steps can be executed separately or combined.

[0427] The above embodiment one is how to determine the first downlink carrier by the user equipment. In addition, how to determine the first downlink carrier can also be based on the network equipment, which will be described below through embodiment two. The application scenario of embodiment two can refer to the related description of step 702 in the embodiment, which will not be repeated here.

[0428] Embodiment two: The network equipment (such as a base station) decides which downlink receiving channel of the resident DLCC to switch to the to-be-measured DLCC. During the cross-carrier downlink measurement, the network equipment interrupts the downlink communication of the resident DLCC without affecting the normal communication on other resident DLCCs, and the user equipment switches the downlink receiving channel of the resident DLCC to the to-be-measured DLCC for cross-carrier downlink measurement. As shown in FIG. 14, FIG. 14 is another flowchart of a downlink measurement method provided by the embodiment of the present application. The specific steps are as follows:

[0429] Step 1401: The user equipment reports capability information to the network equipment;

[0430] For example, the user equipment reports its capability information to the network equipment when it enters the network, so that the network equipment can better communicate with the user equipment or better align with the user equipment during cross-carrier downlink measurement. Optionally, the capability information can include first capability information and / or second capability information. The first capability information indicates the capability of maintaining normal downlink communication of part of the camped downlink carriers during cross-carrier downlink measurement.

[0431] Specifically, the first capability information indicates that the user equipment supports suspending downlink communication with the network equipment on at least one downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers during cross-carrier downlink measurement, and maintaining downlink communication with the network equipment on other downlink carriers in the set of camped downlink carriers. The second capability information indicates that the user equipment supports decoupling of the number of downlink carriers configured by the network and the number of downlink carriers supported by the user equipment. Optionally, decoupling of the number of downlink carriers configured by the network and the number of downlink carriers supported by the user equipment can be understood as the number of downlink carriers configured by the network being greater than or equal to the number of downlink carriers supported by the user equipment.

[0432] Optionally, the user equipment can report the capability information to the network equipment in various ways. The capability information can be reported separately for each frequency band combination, separately for each frequency band, separately for each frequency band of each frequency band combination, or separately for each downlink carrier of each frequency band of each frequency band combination. The first capability information and the second capability information can also be reported separately.

[0433] Optionally, the capability information further includes third capability information, which indicates that the user equipment supports the number of downlink carriers configured by the network being less than or equal to the number of downlink carriers supported by the user equipment.

[0434] The explanations of the first capability information and the second capability information and the ways of reporting the first capability information and the second capability information separately can be referred to the related introduction in step 701 of embodiment one, which will not be repeated here.

[0435] It can be understood that when performing cross-carrier downlink measurement, if the number of downlink carriers to be measured is equal to the number of camped downlink carriers, that is, all downlink receiving channels of the camped downlink carriers are used for cross-carrier downlink measurement of each downlink carrier to be measured, then normal communication on any camped downlink carrier is no longer maintained.

[0436] It should be noted that the above capability information and / or different embodiments can be combined with each other. Optionally, the above capability information and different embodiments can be reported in the same user equipment capability or in multiple user equipment capabilities. For example, in the same user equipment capability, it can be reported as different components of the same user equipment capability.

[0437] Step 1402, the user equipment sends first information to the network equipment;

[0438] Based on the capability information reported by the user equipment to the network equipment in step 1401, when the network equipment determines the first downlink carrier, the user equipment sends first information to the network equipment to enable the network equipment to understand the relevant information of each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set of the user equipment.

[0439] Optionally, the first information is used to determine the switching time required for each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set to switch to other downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set, the switching time required for each frequency band in the first frequency band set to switch to other frequency bands in the first frequency band set, the priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first downlink carrier set, or the priority of other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set, and the first downlink carrier is determined from the first downlink carrier set.

[0440] Optionally, the user equipment can report the first information to the network equipment in various ways, and the first information can be reported separately for each frequency band combination, separately for each frequency band, separately for each frequency band of each frequency band combination, or separately for each downlink carrier of each frequency band of each frequency band combination. Optionally, the first information can be reported together with the capability information, or separately.

[0441] In this embodiment, the explanation of the first information in step 1402 and the reporting manner of the first information are explained in step 702 and step 704 of embodiment one, and will not be repeated here. It should be noted that this step is optional. For example, the network equipment can directly configure the second information according to its own preference, and in this case, the user equipment does not need to send the first information to the network equipment.

[0442] It should be noted that the first capability information and / or the second capability information and / or the first information can be reported in the same user equipment capability or in multiple user equipment capabilities. For example, it can be reported as different components of the same user equipment capability. In other words, there is no certain order between steps 1401 and 1402, which can be implemented simultaneously, or step 1401 can be implemented first and then step 1402, or step 1402 can be implemented first and then step 1401.

[0443] Step 1403: The network equipment sends measurement information to the user equipment;

[0444] The measurement information is used by the user equipment to perform cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carriers based on the measurement information. Optionally, the measurement information can include a measurement interval and can also include measurement configuration information. Optionally, the measurement configuration information includes one or more of a CSI-RS or a CSI-RS resource, a CSI-RS period, a periodicity of the CSI-RS, a resource of a CSI measurement report, a period of the CSI measurement report, a periodicity of the CSI measurement report, a measurement interval, a timer, and a first interval.

[0445] It can be understood that the explanation of the measurement interval and the CSI-RS and the various configuration manners can refer to the related description of step 703 in Embodiment One, which will not be repeated here.

[0446] It should be noted that step 1403 and step 1402, step 1403 do not have a certain order. The network device can send the measurement information to the user equipment before step 1402, after step 1401, or before step 1401. For example, when the network device configures the measurement information of the periodic measurement for the user equipment, the measurement information can be sent to the user equipment through the RRC signaling after the user equipment reports the capability information.

[0447] Step 1404: The network device determines second information;

[0448] Exemplarily, the second information includes network configuration information and / or first indication information. After receiving the first information sent by the user equipment, the network device can obtain the second information based on the first information and / or in combination with other situations of the residing downlink carrier. Alternatively, the network device obtains the second information based on implementation. Wherein, the explanation of the network configuration information and the explanation of the first indication information will be described in detail in step 1405, which will not be described here or can refer to the related description of step 704 in Embodiment One.

[0449] Optionally, the network device determines the second information. Wherein, the second information can indicate the specific priority of each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set. For example, DLCC0 is priority 1, DLCC1 is priority 2, and DLCC2 is priority 3. Optionally, the second information includes the priority order of each downlink carrier or each downlink carrier combination in the first downlink carrier set. It can be understood that the priority order of the downlink carrier combination or the downlink carrier refers to the downlink carrier combination or the downlink carrier from high to low or from low to high. For example, taking the downlink carrier from high to low as an example: (DLCC0, DLCC1, DLCC2) from high to low, indicating that the priority order from high to low is DLCC0, DLCC1, DLCC2.

[0450] Optionally, the network device can also configure based on other parameters of the downlink carriers when configuring the network based on the first information, to obtain the network configuration information. For example, the network device can configure the network configuration information in combination with the priority indicated by the first information and the historical scheduling of the downlink carriers in the first set of downlink carriers. For example, the network device can configure the network configuration information in combination with the switching time indicated by the first information and the functions assumed by different downlink carriers in the first set of downlink carriers. The network device can also set different weights for different parameters, and then determine the first downlink carrier, for example, the weight setting of the historical scheduling is less than the weight setting of the switching time. It can be understood that the network configuration information of the network device can also be configured based on other information of the downlink carriers, which is not limited here.

[0451] It can be understood that the explanation of the first information can refer to the related introduction of step 702 in embodiment one, which will not be repeated here.

[0452] Optionally, in addition to determining the first downlink carrier from the first set of downlink carriers based on the network configuration information, the network device can also determine the first downlink carrier based on a preset rule between the network device and the user equipment, and the specific implementation process refers to the detailed description in embodiment three.

[0453] Optionally, this step is an optional step.

[0454] Step 1405, the network device sends second information to the user equipment, the second information indicating the user equipment to determine the first downlink carrier. The second information includes the network configuration information and / or the first indication information.

[0455] For example, based on step 1404, when the network device leads how to determine the first downlink carrier, after the network device determines the second information, in order to make the user equipment align with the network device when determining the first downlink carrier, that is, the network device and the user equipment align based on which downlink receiving channel of the resident DLCC is switched to the to-be-measured DLCC or which downlink communication of the resident DLCC is maintained.

[0456] Therefore, the network device needs to send the second information to the user equipment, and the second information includes the network configuration information and / or the first indication information, which will be described respectively as follows:

[0457] In one example, the second information includes the network configuration information, which can indicate the priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first set of downlink carriers of the user equipment, or indicate the priority of other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier in the first set of downlink carriers. The following will be described respectively:

[0458] 1. The network configuration information indicates the priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first downlink carrier set.

[0459] For example, the network configuration information indicates that the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier as the highest priority downlink carrier in the downlink carrier combination containing the camped downlink carrier where the to-be-measured downlink carrier is located. The highest priority means that the priority of the determined first downlink carrier is the highest, or the handover priority is the highest. Alternatively, the first downlink carrier can also be the lowest priority downlink carrier in the downlink carrier combination containing the camped downlink carrier where the to-be-measured downlink carrier is located. Alternatively, the lowest priority means the lowest priority for maintaining communication.

[0460] For example, the network configuration information indicates that the network configuration information indicates the priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first downlink carrier set.

[0461] A. As shown in FIG. 8, FIG. 8 is a priority representation provided by an embodiment of the present application. The priority representation of the multi-level structure is shown, and the priority of the determined first downlink carrier is arranged from high to low. Alternatively, each downlink carrier combination contained in each level includes all downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set. For example: for each downlink carrier combination of “DLCC 0, DLCC 1”, “DLCC 2, DLCC 3”, “DLCC 0, DLCC 2”, “DLCC 1, DLCC 3”, “DLCC 0, DLCC 3”, “DLCC 1, DLCC 2”. In the multi-level structure, the first level is “DLCC 0, DLCC 1”, “DLCC 2, DLCC 3”, the second level is “DLCC 0, DLCC 2”, “DLCC 1, DLCC 3”, and the third level is “DLCC 0, DLCC 3”, “DLCC 1, DLCC 2”, and the priority decreases level by level.

[0462] B. As shown in FIG. 9, FIG. 9 is another priority representation provided by the embodiment of the present application. A priority representation of a primary structure is shown, which is determined as the priority of the first downlink carrier arranged from high to low. Wherein, the downlink carrier combinations of "DLCC 0, DLCC 1", "DLCC 2, DLCC 3", "DLCC 0, DLCC 2", "DLCC 1, DLCC 3", "DLCC 0, DLCC 3", "DLCC 1, DLCC 2" are shown. In the primary structure, the switching priorities of the above downlink carrier combinations "DLCC 0, DLCC 1", "DLCC 2, DLCC 3", "DLCC 0, DLCC 2", "DLCC 1, DLCC 3", "DLCC 0, DLCC 3", "DLCC 1, DLCC 2" are sequentially decreased. For example, if the downlink carrier to be measured is DLCC 1, the user equipment searches the priority relationship level by level, and considers that the priority of DLCC 0 determined as the first downlink carrier is the highest. Or it can be understood that the switching time required for the downlink receiving channel of DLCC 0 to switch to DLCC 1 is the shortest, and if DLCC 0 is the current camped DLCC, the first downlink carrier is determined as DLCC 0.

[0463] 2. The network configuration information indicates the priority of each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set corresponding to other downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set.

[0464] Optionally, the network configuration information indicates the priority of each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set corresponding to other downlink carriers, the first downlink carrier is the camped downlink carrier with the highest priority among the other downlink carriers corresponding to the downlink carrier to be measured, and the first downlink carrier set includes the downlink carrier to be measured and the camped downlink carrier set. Optionally, the highest priority means the highest priority determined as the first downlink carrier, or the highest switching priority.

[0465] As shown in FIG. 10, FIG. 10 is another form of priority in the embodiments of the present application. The priority form of the chain level structure is shown, which is determined as the priority of the first downlink carrier from high to low. Among them, the priority of the other downlink carriers corresponding to "DLCC 0" is "DLCC 1", "DLCC 2", "DLCC 3"; the priority of the other downlink carriers corresponding to "DLCC 1" is "DLCC 0", "DLCC 3", "DLCC 2"; the priority relationship of the other downlink carriers corresponding to "DLCC 2" is "DLCC 3", "DLCC 0", "DLCC 1"; the priority relationship of the other downlink carriers corresponding to "DLCC 3" is "DLCC 2", "DLCC 1", "DLCC 0". For example, when the to-be-measured downlink carrier is determined as DLCC 1, the user equipment sequentially looks up the priorities "DLCC 0", "DLCC 3", "DLCC 2", and the priorities are sequentially decreased. It is considered that DLCC 0 is determined as the first downlink carrier with the highest priority, if DLCC 0 is the camping downlink carrier, the camping downlink carrier DLCC 0 is determined as the first downlink carrier. If DLCC 0 is the non-camping downlink carrier, the next priority DLCC 3 will be continued to be queried, if DLCC 3 is the camping downlink carrier, the camping downlink carrier DLCC 3 is determined as the first downlink carrier.

[0466] Optionally, the network configuration information indicates the priority of the other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set, and the first downlink carrier can also be the camping downlink carrier with the lowest priority among the other downlink carriers corresponding to the to-be-measured downlink carrier. At this time, the network configuration information indicates that the user equipment determines the camping downlink carrier with the lowest priority among the other downlink carriers corresponding to the to-be-measured downlink carrier as the first downlink carrier. Among them, the lowest priority means the lowest priority of maintaining communication.

[0467] For example, the priority of the other downlink carriers corresponding to "DLCC 0" is "DLCC 3", "DLCC 2", "DLCC 1", which is arranged from high to low as the priority of the camping downlink carrier maintaining normal communication. When the to-be-measured downlink carrier is determined as DLCC 0, the user equipment sequentially looks up the priority, considers that DLCC 1 is the downlink carrier with the lowest priority of maintaining normal communication, if DLCC 1 is the camping downlink carrier at this time, DLCC 1 is determined as the first downlink carrier. If DLCC 1 is the non-camping downlink carrier, the previous priority DLCC 2 is continued to be queried, if DLCC 2 is the camping downlink carrier, the camping downlink carrier DLCC 2 is determined as the first downlink carrier.

[0468] Optionally, the priority can be a specific priority. For example, DLCC0 is priority 1, DLCC1 is priority 2, and DLCC2 is priority 3. Alternatively, the priority is a priority order. It can be understood that the priority order of the carrier combination or the downlink carrier refers to the carrier combination or the downlink carrier from high to low or from low to high. For example, taking high to low as an example, DLCC0, DLCC1, DLCC2, indicates that the priority order from high to low is DLCC0, DLCC1, DLCC2.

[0469] It can be understood that the above three forms of priority are only examples, and in addition to this, the form of priority can also be other forms, which are not limited here.

[0470] It should be noted that the network device can send the network configuration information to the user equipment after the user equipment enters the network, so that the user equipment obtains the network configuration information at an earlier time, and then the user equipment can directly determine the first downlink carrier based on the previously obtained network configuration information without the additional indication of the network device each time the cross-carrier downlink measurement is required. It can be understood that the network device can also send the network configuration information to the user equipment once every set time, wherein the content indicated in the network configuration information can change, which is not limited here.

[0471] 3、In another example, the second information includes a specific priority of each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set. For example, DLCC0 is priority 1, DLCC1 is priority 2, and DLCC2 is priority 3. Alternatively, the second information includes a priority order of each downlink carrier or each downlink carrier combination in the first downlink carrier set. It can be understood that the priority order of the downlink carrier combination or the downlink carrier refers to the downlink carrier combination or the downlink carrier from high to low or from low to high. For example, taking the downlink carrier from high to low as an example: (DLCC0, DLCC1, DLCC2) from high to low, indicates that the priority order from high to low is DLCC0, DLCC1, DLCC2.

[0472] In another example, the second information includes first indication information, which directly indicates the first downlink carrier to the user equipment.

[0473] Optionally, the first indication information is carried in signaling triggering semi-static measurement or aperiodic measurement, or triggering semi-static CSI-RS or aperiodic CSI-RS, or triggering semi-static measurement report or aperiodic measurement report, or signaling indicating camping downlink carrier or camping downlink carrier switching. It can be understood that, in addition to periodic measurement, the network device can also configure semi-static or aperiodic measurement when configuring, or issue MAC CE signaling or DCI signaling to indicate semi-static CSI-RS or aperiodic CSI-RS, or issue signaling to instruct the user equipment to perform semi-static reporting of measurement report or aperiodic reporting of measurement report. Then, the indication information can be issued to the user equipment together in these signaling, and the user equipment can determine the first downlink carrier according to the indication information.

[0474] For example, when the network device sends the first indication information, the first indication information can be indicated by MAC CE signaling or DCI signaling sent to the user equipment, or can be indicated by other signaling.

[0475] For example, the first indication information is carried in the MAC CE signaling or DCI signaling. When the first indication information is carried in the MAC CE signaling or DCI, the first indication information can indicate a priority similar to the priority indicated by the network configuration information, or directly indicate the first downlink carrier. When the first indication information indicates the priority, the explanation of the priority can refer to the related introduction in step 702 of the embodiment. When the first indication information directly indicates the first downlink carrier, the first downlink carrier can be indicated to the user equipment by the identifier of the first downlink carrier or other information that can indicate the first downlink carrier.

[0476] Optionally, the first indication information can also be carried in dedicated signaling, or carried in MAC CE or DCI signaling indicating camping DL CC. At this time, the first indication information indicates which two camping DL CCs the user equipment needs to switch to. Alternatively, the first indication information can also be carried in DCI signaling for indicating camping DL CC switching. The first indication information can directly indicate the first downlink carrier, or indicate which current camping DL CC to switch, or indicate that the camping DL CC where the DCI signaling is located is switched to the to-be-measured downlink carrier. It can be understood that when indicating the camping carrier or camping carrier switching, which downlink carriers are camping downlink carriers and non-camping downlink carriers is determined, and therefore the first downlink carrier for non-camping downlink carrier measurement can be determined.

[0477] Optionally, the first downlink carrier corresponding to each to-be-measured downlink carrier can be indicated respectively, or the association between the first downlink carrier and the to-be-measured downlink carrier can be indicated respectively, or one first downlink carrier is indicated as the first downlink carrier for cross-carrier downlink measurement of any to-be-measured downlink carrier. It can be understood that if there are multiple to-be-measured downlink carriers, this can ensure that each to-be-measured downlink carrier can determine the corresponding first downlink carrier.

[0478] Optionally, the first indication information can indicate one camping downlink carrier as the first downlink carrier for cross-carrier downlink measurement of all non-camping downlink carriers or to-be-measured downlink carriers. Optionally, the first indication information can indicate at least one camping downlink carrier as the first downlink carrier for cross-carrier downlink measurement of each non-camping downlink carrier or to-be-measured downlink carrier. Optionally, the number of the at least one camping downlink carrier indicated by the first indication information is the same as the number of the non-camping downlink carrier or to-be-measured downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set. Optionally, the at least one camping downlink carrier indicated by the first indication information corresponds to the non-camping downlink carrier or to-be-measured downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set one by one. Optionally, the number of bits of the first indication information is determined according to the number of downlink carriers included in the first carrier set, or the number of bits of the first indication information is determined according to the number of camping downlink carriers in the first carrier set.

[0479] It can be understood that in actual application, the first indication information can also be carried in other signaling, such as self-defined signaling or proprietary signaling, as long as the network device can indicate the first downlink carrier to the user equipment, and the specific implementation is not limited here.

[0480] In another example, the network device sends second information to the user equipment, and the second information indicates the user equipment to determine the first downlink carrier. The second information includes network configuration information and first indication information. Optionally, the network device sends multiple configurations in the network configuration information to the user equipment, and the second information further includes second indication information, and the second indication information indicates one configuration in the multiple configurations, and the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier according to the network configuration information and the configuration indicated by the second indication information. Optionally, the manner of each configuration in the multiple configurations indicated in the network configuration information can be referred to the foregoing, and details are not described here.

[0481] The network configuration information indicates a plurality of configurations, each of which includes at least one carrier combination or a corresponding other downlink carrier of each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set; and the second indication information indicates one of the at least one configuration. Optionally, the second indication information is carried in signaling indicating the camping downlink carrier or the camping downlink carrier switching, for example, DCI signaling. Understandably, the network configuration information and the second indication information can be sent to the user equipment respectively, for example, the network configuration information is sent to the user equipment first, and the second indication information is sent to the user equipment again when needed by the user equipment. Optionally, the plurality of configurations can be a plurality of sets of configurations.

[0482] For example, the network configuration information indicates two configurations to the user equipment: configuration 1 is the priority between the downlink carrier combination "DLCC0, DLCC2" and the downlink carrier combination "DLCC1, DLCC3"; and configuration 2 is the priority between the downlink carrier combination "DLCC0, DLCC1" and the downlink carrier combination "DLCC2, DLCC3". The second indication information indicates to the user equipment that the first downlink carrier is determined based on the configuration 1 when performing the cross-carrier downlink measurement. Understandably, the second indication information can also indicate to the user equipment that the first downlink carrier is determined based on the configuration 2 when performing the cross-carrier downlink measurement. That is, the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier according to the network device configuration and the second indication information.

[0483] Step 1406: The user equipment determines the first downlink carrier from the camping downlink carrier set based on the second information.

[0484] For example, the second information includes the network configuration information, and / or the first indication information, and / or the second indication information. The user equipment determines the first downlink carrier based on the second information, which can be understood as determining the camping downlink carrier that needs to perform the downlink reception capability switching, or determining the camping downlink carrier that needs to suspend the downlink transmission during the cross-carrier downlink measurement, or not expecting to perform the downlink reception of PDSCH, and / or PDCCH, and / or CSI-RS, etc. resources on the determined camping downlink carrier.

[0485] The user equipment determines the first downlink carrier from the downlink carrier set based on the second information. The following will be described respectively:

[0486] Step 14061: The user equipment determines the first downlink carrier based on the network configuration information, which indicates the priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first downlink carrier set or the priority of the corresponding other downlink carrier of each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set.

[0487] For example, the network device determines the camped downlink carrier in the highest priority downlink carrier combination in which the to-be-measured downlink carrier is located as the first downlink carrier, or determines the camped downlink carrier in the downlink carrier combination in which the to-be-measured downlink carrier and the first downlink carrier are located as the first downlink carrier. The following will be described respectively.

[0488] 1. When the network configuration information indicates the priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first downlink carrier set, the first downlink carrier is the camped downlink carrier in the highest priority downlink carrier combination in which the to-be-measured downlink carrier is located. Optionally, the highest priority means that the priority of the first downlink carrier is the highest, or the switching priority is the highest. Optionally, the first downlink carrier can also be the camped downlink carrier in the lowest priority downlink carrier combination in which the to-be-measured downlink carrier is located. Optionally, the lowest priority means the lowest priority of maintaining communication.

[0489] A. For example, as shown in FIG. 11, the priorities of the first downlink carriers are arranged from high to low, if the to-be-measured downlink carrier is DLCC 1, the user equipment searches the priority relationship level by level, and considers that the priority of DLCC 0 determined as the first downlink carrier is the highest. That is, the switching time required for the downlink receiving channel of DLCC 0 to switch to DLCC 1 is the shortest, if DLCC 0 is the current camped DLCC, the user equipment determines DLCC 0 as the first downlink carrier.

[0490] B. For example, as shown in FIG. 12, the priorities of the first downlink carriers are arranged from high to low, if the to-be-measured downlink carrier is DLCC 1, the user equipment searches the priority relationship level by level, and considers that the priority of DLCC 0 determined as the first downlink carrier is the highest. That is, the switching time required for the downlink receiving channel of DLCC 0 to switch to DLCC 1 is the shortest, if DLCC 0 is the current camped DLCC, the user equipment determines DLCC 0 as the first downlink carrier.

[0491] 2. For example, when the network configuration information indicates the priority of each downlink carrier corresponding to other downlink carriers in the first downlink carrier set in the first downlink carrier set, the first downlink carrier is the camped downlink carrier with the highest priority among the other downlink carriers corresponding to the to-be-measured downlink carrier, wherein the highest priority means that the priority of the first downlink carrier is the highest, or the switching priority is the highest.

[0492] As shown in FIG. 13, the priorities of the first downlink carriers are determined from high to low. For example, when the to-be-measured downlink carrier is determined to be DLCC 1, the user equipment sequentially looks up the priorities "DLCC 0", "DLCC 3", "DLCC 2", and the priorities are sequentially decreased. It is considered that the priority of DLCC 0 determined as the first downlink carrier is the highest, if the DLCC 0 is the camping downlink carrier, the camping downlink carrier DLCC 0 is determined as the first downlink carrier. If the DLCC 0 is the non-camping downlink carrier, the next priority, i.e., DLCC 3, is continued to be looked up, if the DLCC 3 is the camping downlink carrier, the user equipment determines the camping downlink carrier DLCC 3 as the first downlink carrier.

[0493] For example, when the network configuration information indicates the priorities of the other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set in the first downlink carrier set, the first downlink carrier is the camping downlink carrier with the lowest priority among the other downlink carriers corresponding to the to-be-measured downlink carrier, wherein the lowest priority means the lowest priority of the camping downlink carrier for maintaining normal communication.

[0494] For example, the priorities of the other downlink carriers corresponding to "DLCC 0" are "DLCC 3", "DLCC 2", "DLCC 1", and the priorities of the camping downlink carriers for maintaining normal communication are arranged from high to low. When the to-be-measured downlink carrier is determined to be DLCC 0, the user equipment sequentially looks up the priorities, considers that DLCC 1 is the downlink carrier with the lowest priority for maintaining normal communication, if the DLCC 1 is the camping downlink carrier at this time, the DLCC 1 is determined as the first downlink carrier. If the DLCC 1 is the non-camping downlink carrier, the previous priority is continued to be looked up, i.e., DLCC 2, if the DLCC 2 is the camping downlink carrier, the user equipment determines the camping downlink carrier DLCC 2 as the first downlink carrier.

[0495] For the explanation of the network configuration information and the different forms of the priority of the network configuration information, reference can be made to the related introduction in step 1405 in Embodiment 2, which will not be repeated here.

[0496] In step 14062, the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier based on the first indication information.

[0497] For example, the first indication information of the network equipment directly indicates the first downlink carrier to the user equipment, and then the user equipment can directly determine the first downlink carrier from the camping downlink carrier set after receiving the first indication information. For the explanation of the first indication information, reference can be made to the related introduction in step 1405 in Embodiment 2, or reference can be made to the related introduction in step 703 in Embodiment 1, which will not be repeated here.

[0498] Optionally, in the case that the network device indicates multiple configurations in the network configuration information sent to the user equipment, the user equipment can also determine the first downlink carrier according to the configuration indicated by the network configuration information and the second indication information. That is, the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier according to the configuration indicated by the second indication information using the network configuration information after receiving the network configuration information. The explanation of the second indication information and the multiple configurations can refer to the related introduction in step 1405 in Embodiment 2, which will not be repeated here.

[0499] In another example, the second information includes the specific priority of each downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set. The first downlink carrier is the downlink carrier with the highest priority or the downlink carrier with the lowest priority in the set of resident downlink carriers. Wherein, the highest priority means that the priority of the determined first downlink carrier is the highest, and the lowest priority means that the priority of the downlink carrier maintaining normal communication is the lowest. For example, the second information includes: DLCC0 is priority 1, DLCC1 is priority 2, and DLCC2 is priority 3, wherein DLCC0 and DLCC2 are resident downlink carriers. If priority 1 is the highest priority, the first downlink carrier is DLCC0.

[0500] Optionally, the second information includes the specific priority or priority order of each downlink carrier or each downlink carrier combination in the first downlink carrier set. Optionally, the first downlink carrier is the downlink carrier with the highest priority or the downlink carrier with the lowest priority in the set of resident downlink carriers. Wherein, the highest priority means that the priority of the determined first downlink carrier is the highest, and the lowest priority means that the priority of the downlink carrier maintaining normal communication is the lowest. For example: the second information includes the priority order of the downlink carriers from high to low (DLCC0, DLCC1, DLCC2), wherein DLCC0 and DLCC2 are resident downlink carriers, and the first downlink carrier is the resident downlink carrier DLCC0 with the highest priority.

[0501] Step 1407: The user equipment performs cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier based on the measurement information sent by the network device;

[0502] For example, when cross-carrier downlink measurement is needed, the user equipment can perform cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier or the configured cross-carrier CSI-RS resource of the to-be-measured downlink carrier in the configured measurement interval. During the cross-carrier downlink measurement, the downlink communication on the determined first downlink carrier is suspended, and the downlink communication between the user equipment and the network equipment on the second downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers is maintained. Optionally, suspending the downlink communication on the first downlink carrier includes stopping, pausing, or interrupting the downlink communication on the first downlink carrier. Optionally, maintaining the downlink communication on the second downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers can be understood as not affecting the downlink communication on the second downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers.

[0503] It can be understood that the implementation of the measurement information and the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier can refer to the related description of step 703 and step 706 in Embodiment 2, which will not be repeated here.

[0504] For example, after each measurement or after the measurement interval ends, the user equipment reports the measurement report of this downlink measurement to the network equipment. It can be understood that the period of reporting the measurement report can be indicated by the network equipment, which is not limited here.

[0505] It should be noted that step 1406 in Embodiment 2 has no certain order with steps 1403, 1404, and 1405. For example, step 1406 can be implemented before step 1403 and after step 1402. Step 1404 also has no certain order with step 1403. Step 1403 can be implemented first, and then step 1404 can be implemented. Step 1404 can be implemented first, and then step 1403 can be implemented.

[0506] It can be understood that the above steps are not necessarily executed, and some or all of the steps can be executed. The above steps can be executed separately or combined.

[0507] The above Embodiment 1 and Embodiment 2 are respectively determined by the user equipment and the network equipment to determine the first downlink carrier. The following Embodiment 3 is based on the preset rule of the network equipment and the user equipment to determine:

[0508] Embodiment 3: Determine which downlink reception channel of the camped DLCC is switched to the to-be-measured downlink carrier by the preset rule of the user equipment and the network equipment. As shown in FIG. 15, FIG. 15 is another flowchart of the downlink measurement method provided by the embodiments of the present application. The specific steps are as follows:

[0509] Step 1501, the user equipment reports the capability information to the network equipment.

[0510] The capability information includes, for example, first capability information and / or second capability information, and / or third capability information.

[0511] The user equipment can report the capability information to the network equipment in various manners. The capability information can be reported separately for each band combination, separately for each band, separately for each band of each band combination, or separately for each downlink carrier of each band of each band combination. The first capability information and the second capability information can also be reported separately.

[0512] The explanation of the capability information and the different reporting manners can be referred to the related description in step 701 in Embodiment 1, which will not be repeated here.

[0513] In step 1502, the network equipment sends measurement information to the user equipment, so that the user equipment performs cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier based on the measurement information.

[0514] The measurement information includes, for example, measurement interval and / or measurement configuration information. Optionally, the measurement configuration information includes one or more of CSI-RS or CSI-RS resource, CSI-RS period, periodicity of CSI-RS, resource of CSI measurement report, period of CSI measurement report, periodicity of CSI measurement report, measurement interval, timer, and first interval. It can be understood that the measurement configuration information introduced below can be included in the measurement information.

[0515] The configuration of the measurement information can be periodic, aperiodic, or semi-static. The explanation of the measurement interval and the CSI-RS and the configuration manner can be referred to the related description in step 703 in Embodiment 1, which will not be repeated here.

[0516] In step 1503, the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier based on a preset rule.

[0517] In a possible implementation, the user equipment determines the first downlink carrier based on a preset rule, which is used to indicate how to determine the first downlink carrier during the cross-carrier downlink measurement.

[0518] The first downlink carrier can be determined based on at least one of the following preset rules, for example.

[0519] 1. The first downlink carrier is determined based on historical measurement results of the user equipment, and the historical measurement results include measurement results of the camped downlink carriers in the set of camped downlink carriers.

[0520] In a possible implementation, the first downlink carrier is a camped downlink carrier with the worst channel condition or the worst historical measurement result in the historical measurement results.

[0521] For example, the downlink measurement can be classified into cross-carrier downlink measurement and intra-carrier downlink measurement, and the cross-carrier downlink measurement belongs to cross-carrier measurement, i.e. switching the resident DL CC to the downlink carrier to be measured for cross-carrier downlink measurement. In addition, the intra-carrier downlink measurement is performed on each resident DL CC, and the intra-carrier downlink measurement can be periodic, for example, each resident DL CC performs the intra-carrier downlink measurement once in each measurement period, so as to obtain and update the channel condition of the current resident DL CC in time.

[0522] No matter the intra-carrier measurement or the cross-carrier measurement, the user equipment reports the measurement result to the network equipment when the downlink measurement is completed. That is, the user equipment and the network equipment can obtain the measurement result of the resident downlink carrier. Based on the downlink measurement result of each resident downlink carrier, the channel condition of each resident downlink carrier is determined. Therefore, the resident downlink carrier with the worst channel condition can be determined as the first downlink carrier, i.e. interrupting the downlink communication of the resident downlink carrier with the worst channel condition during the cross-carrier downlink measurement, and maintaining the downlink communication of the resident downlink carrier with better channel condition, so as to greatly reduce the influence of the cross-carrier downlink measurement on the downlink communication of the user equipment.

[0523] Optionally, the historical measurement result can refer to the result of the previous measurement, or the measurement result in the previous period of time. Optionally, the measurement result can be periodic, aperiodic or semi-static. Optionally, the measurement result in the previous period of time can be at least one measurement result in the previous period of time or the average of at least one measurement result in the previous period of time.

[0524] Optionally, the channel condition in the historical measurement result or the historical measurement result can be determined based on any one or more of signal to noise ratio (SNR), signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR), reference signal received power (RSRP), received signal strength indication (RSSI), reference signal received quality (RSRQ), and channel quality indicator (CQI). It can be understood that the worst channel condition in the historical measurement result or the worst historical measurement result can refer to the lowest value of any one or more of SNR, SINR, RSRP, RSSI, RSRQ and CQI.

[0525] 2、The first downlink carrier is determined based on a TAG group in which the to-be-measured downlink carrier is located.

[0526] For example, the first downlink carrier is a camping downlink carrier in the same TAG group as the to-be-measured downlink carrier. Downlink carriers in the same TAG group can be time-aligned, that is, camping downlink carriers in the same TAG have the same timing, so that the user equipment can perform cross-carrier downlink measurement at an exact time domain position, avoiding continuous searching for the timing of the to-be-measured downlink carrier, and improving measurement efficiency.

[0527] 3、The first downlink carrier is a camping downlink carrier in which signaling or information indicating a camping downlink carrier, or indicating camping downlink carrier switching, or triggering cross-carrier downlink measurement is located.

[0528] For example, when an event triggering the user equipment to start carrier switching occurs, the network equipment sends DCI signaling to the user equipment, and the network equipment and the user equipment can both determine the camping DLCC triggering the DCI signaling as the first downlink carrier.

[0529] 4、The first downlink carrier is a non-occupied camping downlink carrier or a non-idle camping downlink carrier in the set of camping downlink carriers.

[0530] For example, the non-occupied camping downlink carrier refers to a camping DLCC without scheduling transmission, or the non-occupied camping downlink carrier refers to a camping downlink carrier with an occupancy rate less than or equal to a set threshold or the lowest occupancy rate. The first downlink carrier is a non-occupied camping downlink carrier in the set of camping downlink carriers, which can prevent the downlink carrier with more usage for transmission from being switched during cross-carrier downlink measurement, avoiding a greater impact on transmission performance.

[0531] For example, the non-idle camping downlink carrier refers to a camping downlink carrier with a busy rate greater than or equal to a preset threshold or the highest busy rate, or the non-idle camping downlink carrier refers to a camping downlink carrier with an idle rate less than or equal to a preset threshold or the lowest idle rate. It can be understood that the higher the busy rate of the non-idle camping downlink carrier, the more serious the resource occupation of the non-idle camping downlink carrier by other user equipment. By selecting the non-idle camping downlink carrier with the higher busy rate as the first downlink carrier, the user equipment no longer occupies resources on the non-idle camping downlink carrier with the higher busy rate.

[0532] The non-occupied camping downlink carrier or the non-idle camping downlink carrier is described as follows:

[0533] A、The first downlink carrier is a camping downlink carrier without scheduling transmission.

[0534] Optionally, the first downlink carrier can be a camping downlink carrier which has no transmission scheduled at present, or a camping downlink carrier which has no transmission scheduled during the cross-carrier downlink measurement of the to-be-measured downlink carrier. Optionally, the cross-carrier downlink measurement period refers to the measurement interval of the to-be-measured downlink carrier. Optionally, the cross-carrier downlink measurement period of the to-be-measured downlink carrier includes the inter-carrier switching time before and after the measurement.

[0535] During downlink communication with the user equipment, the network device schedules resources on the camping DLCC, for example, the network device schedules PDSCH or sends PDCCH on the camping DLCC. In order to avoid the influence of cross-carrier downlink measurement on the scheduling of the user equipment by the network device, the camping DLCC which has no scheduling or has completed scheduling is determined as the first downlink carrier when cross-carrier downlink measurement is needed.

[0536] B. The first downlink carrier is a camping downlink carrier with an occupancy rate less than or equal to a set threshold or the lowest occupancy rate.

[0537] Optionally, the non-occupied downlink carrier can be a camping downlink carrier with an occupancy rate less than or equal to a set threshold or the lowest occupancy rate. During communication, the user equipment uses resources in different downlink carriers differently, and the occupancy rates are also different. In other words, for the user equipment, if the downlink communication on the camping DLCC with a higher occupancy rate is interrupted, the impact on the communication performance is greater. Therefore, the camping DLCC with a lower occupancy degree is preferentially selected as the first downlink carrier.

[0538] Optionally, the occupancy rate can be any one of resource occupancy rate, channel occupancy rate, spectrum occupancy rate, carrier occupancy rate, cell occupancy rate, or BWP occupancy rate. Optionally, the occupancy rate can also be usage rate. Optionally, the occupancy rate refers to the proportion of the number of resources occupied by the user equipment to the total number of resources within a period of time.

[0539] C. The first downlink carrier is a camping downlink carrier with a busy rate greater than or equal to a preset threshold or the highest busy rate, or a camping downlink carrier with an idle rate less than or equal to a preset threshold or the lowest idle rate.

[0540] Optionally, the non-idle downlink carrier can be a downlink carrier with a busy rate greater than or equal to a preset threshold or a highest busy rate, or a downlink carrier with an idle rate less than or equal to a preset threshold or a lowest idle rate. In a communication process, different downlink carriers can have different loads and different busy degrees. In other words, some downlink carriers have a large communication load and more user equipment transmits on the downlink carrier, and then the downlink communication on the downlink carrier is interrupted and used for cross-carrier measurement, which can alleviate the resource congestion on the downlink carrier and improve the system communication performance. Therefore, the downlink carrier with a higher busy degree or a lower idle rate is preferentially selected as the first downlink carrier.

[0541] Optionally, the busy rate can be any one of a resource busy rate, a channel busy rate, a spectrum busy rate, a carrier busy rate, a cell busy rate, or a BWP busy rate. Optionally, the idle rate can be any one of a resource idle rate, a channel idle rate, a spectrum idle rate, a carrier idle rate, a cell idle rate, or a BWP idle rate. Optionally, the busy rate refers to a proportion of a number of resources with one or more indicators greater than or equal to a threshold value to a total number of resources in a period of time. Optionally, the idle rate refers to a proportion of a number of resources with one or more indicators less than or equal to a threshold value to a total number of resources in a period of time, or the idle rate = (1 - the busy rate). Optionally, the number of resources and / or the total number of resources with one or more indicators greater than or equal to a threshold value in a period of time, wherein the number of resources and the total number of resources include all resources that meet the condition, or the number of resources and / or the total number of resources occupied by other devices, or the number of resources and / or the total number of resources excluding the resources occupied by the user equipment. It can be understood that the indicators can be any one or more of SNR, SINR, RSRP, RSSI, RSRQ, CQI, and the like.

[0542] It can be understood that the length of the period of time and / or the threshold value and / or the specific value of the set threshold value can be customized or configured by the network device, and the specific values are not limited here.

[0543] It should be noted that when there are multiple downlink carriers in the set of downlink carriers, and all the downlink carriers are idle downlink carriers, the first downlink carrier can be further determined in combination with the preset rules 1, 2, 3, or 4. For example, when there is no scheduling transmission on DLCC 0 and DLCC 2, the downlink carrier with the worst channel condition among DLCC 0 and DLCC 2 can be determined as the first downlink carrier in combination with rule 1 according to the historical measurement results of DLCC 0 and DLCC 2. It can be understood that the combination of rule 4 and other rules is similar to the above example combined with rule 1, and the specific values are not described here.

[0544] 5. The first downlink carrier is determined based on a frequency band or a frequency range in which the to-be-measured downlink carrier is located.

[0545] In a possible implementation, a first downlink carrier is determined as a downlink carrier in the set of downlink carriers that is in the same frequency band as the to-be-measured downlink carrier.

[0546] For example, the switching time required for switching between downlink carriers in the same frequency band is shorter than the switching time required for switching between downlink carriers in different frequency bands. After the to-be-measured downlink carrier is determined, a first downlink carrier is determined as a downlink carrier in the set of downlink carriers that is in the same frequency band as the to-be-measured downlink carrier. Thus, the time required for cross-carrier downlink measurement is reduced, that is, the duration of communication interruption in the first downlink carrier is reduced.

[0547] In a possible implementation, a first downlink carrier is determined as a downlink carrier in the set of downlink carriers that is in the same frequency range as the center frequency point of the to-be-measured downlink carrier.

[0548] For example, the switching time required for switching between downlink carriers in the same frequency band is shorter than the switching time required for switching between downlink carriers in different frequency bands. After the to-be-measured downlink carrier is determined, a first downlink carrier is determined as a downlink carrier in the set of downlink carriers that is in the same frequency band as the to-be-measured downlink carrier. Thus, the time required for cross-carrier downlink measurement is reduced, that is, the duration of communication interruption in the first downlink carrier is reduced.

[0549] It can be understood that the frequency range can be predefined or determined by the network device based on the capability information reported by the user equipment, which is not limited here.

[0550] 6、The first downlink carrier is a non-anchor downlink carrier.

[0551] Optionally, the non-anchor downlink carrier can refer to a downlink carrier corresponding to a secondary cell. For example, the downlink carriers of the user equipment can be divided into primary cell downlink carriers and secondary cell downlink carriers, or anchor downlink carriers and non-anchor downlink carriers according to the functions to be performed. The primary cell downlink carriers or the anchor downlink carriers need to perform more functions, for example, synchronization, in addition to load balancing. In addition, during cross-carrier downlink measurement, the first downlink carrier needs to interrupt communication, and therefore, compared with determining the primary cell downlink carriers or the anchor downlink carriers as the first downlink carriers, determining the secondary cell downlink carriers or the non-anchor downlink carriers that need to perform fewer functions as the first downlink carriers has less impact on the communication between the network device and the user equipment. It can be understood that the secondary cell downlink carrier refers to a downlink carrier corresponding to a secondary cell, or a secondary downlink carrier.

[0552] 7. The first downlink carrier is determined based on a downlink radio frequency channel used by the to-be-measured downlink carrier.

[0553] For example, a camping downlink carrier in the first downlink carrier set that uses the same downlink radio frequency channel as the to-be-measured downlink carrier is determined as the first downlink carrier. Alternatively, the downlink carrier using the same downlink radio frequency channel is determined based on network configuration or signaling indication, or based on UE reporting information. The downlink carrier in the same downlink radio frequency channel does not need to be tuned in the handover, which can reduce the handover time and the length of time without downlink communication, thereby ensuring the communication performance.

[0554] Alternatively, the user equipment and the network equipment can determine the first downlink carrier based on the above-mentioned preset rules. It can be understood that the camping downlink carrier that needs to perform downlink reception capability switching is determined based on the preset rules, or the camping downlink carrier that needs to suspend downlink transmission during cross-carrier downlink measurement is determined, or downlink reception of PDSCH, PDCCH, CSI-RS, and the like is not expected on the determined camping downlink carrier.

[0555] It should be noted that the preset rules in items 4, 5, 6, and 7 can be implemented alone or in combination with the preset rules in items 1, 2, 3, and 4. When combined, the first downlink carrier is preferentially determined based on the preset rules in items 5 and 6, and when there are multiple or 0 downlink carriers that meet the preset rules in items 5 and 6, the first downlink carrier is further determined according to any one of the preset rules in items 1, 2, 3, and 4.

[0556] Step 1504: The network equipment determines the first downlink carrier from the camping downlink carrier set based on the preset rules.

[0557] In a possible implementation, the communication protocol between the user equipment and the network equipment contains preset rules for indicating how to determine the first downlink carrier during cross-carrier downlink measurement, and the network equipment can align with the user equipment through the preset rules regarding the first downlink carrier or the second downlink carrier for maintaining normal communication during cross-carrier downlink measurement.

[0558] It should be noted that step 1504 is similar to step 1503, and the explanation of the preset rules can refer to the related introduction of step 1503, which will not be repeated here.

[0559] Alternatively, the present step is an optional step.

[0560] Step 1505: The user equipment performs cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier based on the measurement information sent by the network equipment.

[0561] For example, when cross-carrier downlink measurement is needed, the user equipment can perform cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier in the configured measurement interval, or perform measurement on the cross-carrier CSI-RS resource configured for the to-be-measured downlink carrier.

[0562] The configuration of the measurement information and the measurement manner can refer to the related description of steps 703 and 706 in Embodiment 1, which will not be repeated here.

[0563] For example, the user equipment generates a measurement report after each measurement or after the measurement interval. Alternatively, the user equipment can report the measurement report of this downlink measurement to the network equipment according to the indication of the network equipment. It can be understood that the period of reporting the measurement report can be indicated by the network equipment, which is not limited here.

[0564] It should be noted that steps 1502 and 1503 can be implemented simultaneously, or step 1502 can be implemented first and then ste...

Claims

A downlink measurement method, characterized in that, The method comprises: determining a first downlink carrier from a set of camped downlink carriers; performing a downlink measurement on a to-be-measured downlink carrier; suspending downlink communication on the first downlink carrier and maintaining downlink communication on a second downlink carrier from the set of camped downlink carriers while performing the downlink measurement. The method of claim 1, wherein The determining the first downlink carrier from the set of camped downlink carriers comprises: determining the first downlink carrier based on first information, the first information being used to determine a switching time required for switching each downlink carrier in a first set of downlink carriers to other downlink carriers in the first set of downlink carriers, the first set of downlink carriers comprising the set of camped downlink carriers; and / or, the first information being used to determine a switching time required for switching each frequency band in a first set of frequency bands to other frequency bands in the first set of frequency bands, downlink carriers in the set of camped downlink carriers being located in part or all of the frequency bands in the first set of frequency bands. The method according to claim 2, characterized in that The method further comprises: sending the first information to a network device. The method of claim 1, wherein The method further comprises: receiving second information from the network device, the second information being used to determine the first downlink carrier from the set of camped downlink carriers. The method according to claim 4, characterized in that The second information comprises network configuration information, the network configuration information indicating a priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first set of downlink carriers; or, the network configuration information indicating a priority of other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier in the first set of downlink carriers. The method according to claim 5, characterized in that The first downlink carrier is a highest-priority camped downlink carrier from other downlink carriers corresponding to the to-be-measured downlink carrier, the first set of downlink carriers comprising the to-be-measured downlink carrier and the set of camped downlink carriers. The method of claim 1, wherein The first downlink carrier is determined based on historical measurement results, the historical measurement results comprising measurement results of camped downlink carriers in the set of camped downlink carriers. The method of claim 7, wherein The first downlink carrier is a worst-performing camped downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers. The method of claim 1, wherein The first downlink carrier is determined based on a timing advance group (TAG) to which the to-be-measured downlink carrier belongs. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 9, characterized in that The method further comprises: sending first capability information to a network device, the first capability information indicating that the user equipment supports suspending downlink communication on the first downlink carrier and maintaining downlink communication on the second downlink carrier from the set of camped downlink carriers while performing the downlink measurement. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 10, characterized in that The performing the downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier comprises: performing the downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier based on measurement information from a network device, the measurement information comprising a first measurement interval, the first measurement interval indicating that the downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier is performed within the first measurement interval. The method of claim 11, wherein The measurement information further comprises a cross-carrier channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS), the cross-carrier CSI-RS being used for cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier. A downlink measurement method, characterized in that, The method comprises: determining a first downlink carrier from a set of camped downlink carriers of a user equipment; suspend downlink communication on the first downlink carrier and maintain downlink communication on a second downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers when the user equipment performs downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier. The method of claim 13, wherein The determining the first downlink carrier from the set of camped downlink carriers of the user equipment comprises: determining the first downlink carrier based on first information from the user equipment, the first information indicating a switching time required for each downlink carrier in a first set of downlink carriers to switch to other downlink carriers in the first set of downlink carriers, the first set of downlink carriers comprising the set of camped downlink carriers; and / or, the first information indicating a switching time required for each frequency band in a first set of frequency bands to switch to other frequency bands in the first set of frequency bands, downlink carriers in the set of camped downlink carriers being located in part or all of the frequency bands in the first set of frequency bands. The method of claim 13, wherein The determining the first downlink carrier from the set of camped downlink carriers of the user equipment comprises: determining the first downlink carrier based on second information. The method of claim 15, wherein The method further comprises: sending the second information to the user equipment, the second information being used by the user equipment to determine the first downlink carrier from the set of camped downlink carriers. The method according to claim 15 or 16, characterized in that The second information comprises network configuration information, the network configuration information indicating a priority of each downlink carrier combination in the first set of downlink carriers; or, the network configuration information indicating a priority of other downlink carriers corresponding to each downlink carrier in the first set of downlink carriers. The method of claim 17, wherein The first downlink carrier is a highest-priority camped downlink carrier among other downlink carriers corresponding to the to-be-measured downlink carrier, the first set of downlink carriers comprising the to-be-measured downlink carrier and the set of camped downlink carriers. The method of claim 13, wherein The first downlink carrier is determined based on historical measurement results of the user equipment, the historical measurement results comprising measurement results of camped downlink carriers in the set of camped downlink carriers. The method of claim 19, wherein The first downlink carrier is a worst-performing camped downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers. The method of claim 13, wherein The first downlink carrier is determined based on a timing advance group (TAG) in which the to-be-measured downlink carrier is located. The method according to any one of claims 13 to 21, characterized in that The method further comprises: receiving first capability information of the user equipment, the first capability information indicating that the user equipment supports suspending downlink communication on the first downlink carrier and maintaining downlink communication on the second downlink carrier in the set of camped downlink carriers when performing the downlink measurement. The method according to any one of claims 13 to 22, characterized in that The method further comprises: sending measurement information to the user equipment, the measurement information comprising a first measurement interval, the first measurement interval indicating that the user equipment performs downlink measurement on each of the to-be-measured downlink carriers within the first measurement interval. The method of claim 23, wherein The measurement information further comprises a cross-carrier channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS), the cross-carrier CSI-RS being used by the user equipment to perform cross-carrier downlink measurement on the to-be-measured downlink carrier. A communication device characterized by comprising: comprising means or modules for performing the method of any of claims 1-12. A communication device, characterized by comprising means or modules for performing the method of any of claims 13-24. A computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions, characterized in that, The instructions, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform the method of any one of claims 1 to 24. A computer program product comprising instructions, characterized in that When run on a computer, cause the computer to perform the method of any one of claims 1 to 24. A communication system characterized by comprising a first device for performing the method of any one of claims 1-12 and a second device for performing the method of any one of claims 13-24.

Images