Selecting and configuring monitoring reference signal resources

Abstract

Example embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to selecting and configuring monitoring RS resources. A method comprises receiving, from a second apparatus, activation information to activate at least one trigger state for performance monitoring of beam prediction; determining, based on the at least one trigger state, at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource from RS resources configured for the beam prediction; receiving, from the second apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource; and performing the performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the received reference signal.

Description

SELECTING AND CONFIGURING MONITORING REFERENCE SIGNAL RESOURCESCROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

[0001] This application claims priority from, and the benefit of, US Provisional Application No. 63 / 702899, filed October 3, 2024, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.FIELD

[0002] Various example embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to the field of telecommunication and in particular, to methods, devices, apparatuses and computer readable storage medium for selecting and configuring monitoring reference signal (RS) resources.BACKGROUND

[0003] Artificial I ntelligence / Machine Learning (AI / ML) techniques have been proposed to improve communication performances. For example, communication devices may employ an AI / ML model to improve communication qualities. The Al / ML model can be applied to different use cases, for example beam management. For the use case of the beam management, one or more best beams are predicted using the AI / ML model based on beam measurement.SUMMARY

[0004] In a first aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a first apparatus. The first apparatus comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first apparatus at least to: receive, from a second apparatus, activation information to activate at least one trigger state for performance monitoring of beam prediction; determine, based on the at least one trigger state, at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource from RS resources configured for the beam prediction; receive, from the second apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource; and perform the performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the received reference signal.

[0005] In a second aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a second apparatus. The second apparatus comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the second apparatus at least to: determine at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource from RS resources configured to a first apparatus for beam prediction; determine at least one trigger state for performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the at least one monitoring RS resource; transmit, to the first apparatus, activation information to activate the at least one trigger state; and transmit, to the first apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource to perform the performance monitoring of the beam prediction.

[0006] In a third aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: receiving, from a second apparatus, activation information to activate at least one trigger state for performance monitoring of beam prediction; determining, based on the at least one trigger state, at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource from RS resources configured for the beam prediction; receiving, from the second apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource; and performing the performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the received reference signal.

[0007] In a fourth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: determining at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource from RS resources configured to a first apparatus for beam prediction; determining at least one trigger state for performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the at least one monitoring RS resource; transmitting, to the first apparatus, activation information to activate the at least one trigger state; and transmitting, to the first apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource to perform the performance monitoring of the beam prediction.

[0008] In a fifth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a first apparatus. The first apparatus comprises means for receiving, from a second apparatus, activation information to activate at least one trigger state for performance monitoring of beam prediction; means for determining, based on the at least one trigger state, at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource from RS resources configured for the beam prediction; means for receiving, from the second apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource; and means for performing the performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the received reference signal.

[0009] In a sixth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a second apparatus. The second apparatus comprises means for determining at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource from RS resources configured to a first apparatus for beam prediction; means for determining at least one trigger state for performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the at least one monitoring RS resource; means for transmitting, to the first apparatus, activation information to activate the at least one trigger state; and means for transmitting, to the first apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource to perform the performance monitoring of the beam prediction.

[0010] In a seventh aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium comprises instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus to perform at least the method according to the third aspect.

[0011] In an eighth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium comprises instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus to perform at least the method according to the fourth aspect.

[0012] In a ninth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a first apparatus. The first apparatus comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first apparatus at least to: transmit, to a second apparatus, an inference report for beam prediction; receive, from the second apparatus, activation information to activate a trigger state for performance monitoring of the beam prediction; in accordance with a determination that the activated trigger state has a predefined identifier, determine at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource based on at least one of the inference report or a predetermined RS resource set corresponding to the activated trigger state; receive, from the second apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource; and perform the performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the received reference signal.

[0013] In a tenth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a second apparatus. The second apparatus comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the second apparatus at least to: receive, from a first apparatus, an inference report for beam prediction; transmit, to the first apparatus, activation information to activate a trigger state with a predefined identifier for performance monitoring of the beam prediction; determine at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource based on at least one of the inference report or a predetermined RS resource set corresponding to the activated trigger state; and transmit, to the first apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource to perform the performance monitoring of the beam prediction.

[0014] In an eleventh aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: transmitting, to a second apparatus, an inference report for beam prediction; receiving, from the second apparatus, activation information to activate a trigger state for performance monitoring of the beam prediction; in accordance with a determination that the activated trigger state has a predefined identifier, determining at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource based on at least one of the inference report or a predetermined RS resource set corresponding to the activated trigger state; receiving, from the second apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource; and performing the performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the received reference signal.

[0015] In a twelfth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: receiving, from a first apparatus, an inference report for beam prediction; transmitting, to the first apparatus, activation information to activate a trigger state with a predefined identifier for performance monitoring of the beam prediction; determining at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource based on at least one of the inference report or a predetermined RS resource set corresponding to the activated trigger state; and transmitting, to the first apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource to perform the performance monitoring of the beamprediction.

[0016] In a thirteenth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a first apparatus. The first apparatus comprises means for transmitting, to a second apparatus, an inference report for beam prediction; means for receiving, from the second apparatus, activation information to activate a trigger state for performance monitoring of the beam prediction; means for in accordance with a determination that the activated trigger state has a predefined identifier, determining at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource based on at least one of the inference report or a predetermined RS resource set corresponding to the activated trigger state; means for receiving, from the second apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource; and means for performing the performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the received reference signal.

[0017] In a fourteenth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a second apparatus. The second apparatus comprises means for receiving, from a first apparatus, an inference report for beam prediction; means for transmitting, to the first apparatus, activation information to activate a trigger state with a predefined identifier for performance monitoring of the beam prediction; means for determining at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource based on at least one of the inference report or a predetermined RS resource set corresponding to the activated trigger state; and means for transmitting, to the first apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource to perform the performance monitoring of the beam prediction.

[0018] In a fifteenth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium comprises instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus to perform at least the method according to the eleventh aspect.

[0019] In a sixteenth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium comprises instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus to perform at least the method according to the twelfth aspect.

[0020] It is to be understood that the Summary section is not intended to identify key or essential features of embodiments of the present disclosure, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the present disclosure. Other features of the present disclosure will become easily comprehensible through the following description.BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0021] Some example embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, where:

[0022] FIG. 1 illustrates an example communication environment in which example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented;

[0023] FIG. 2 illustrates an example signaling flow for performance monitoring of beam prediction in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0024] FIG. 3 illustrates an example signaling flow for performance monitoring of beam prediction in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0025] FIG. 4 illustrates a high-level signaling diagram illustrating key aspects of the procedure for selecting the monitoring RS resource set;

[0026] FIG. 5 illustrates a high-level signaling diagram illustrating key aspects of the procedure for configuring the monitoring RS resource set and steps for performing monitoring operations;

[0027] FIG. 6A illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at the first apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0028] FIG. 6B illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at the second apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0029] FIG. 7A illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at the first apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0030] FIG. 7B illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at the second apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0031] FIG. 8 illustrates a simplified block diagram of a device that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure; and

[0032] FIG. 9 illustrates a block diagram of an example computer readable medium in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0033] Throughout the drawings, the same or similar reference numerals represent the same or similar element.DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0034] Principle of the present disclosure will now be described with reference to some example embodiments. It is to be understood that these embodiments are described only for the purpose of illustration and help those skilled in the art to understand and implement the present disclosure, without suggesting any limitation as to the scope of the disclosure. Embodiments described herein can be implemented in various manners other than the ones described below.

[0035] In the following description and claims, unless defined otherwise, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skills in the art to which this disclosure belongs.

[0036] References in the present disclosure to “one embodiment,” “an embodiment,” “an example embodiment,” and the like indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but it is not necessary that every embodiment includes the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover, such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment. Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an embodiment, it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to affectsuch feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodiments whether or not explicitly described.

[0037] It shall be understood that although the terms “first,” “second,”..., etc. in front of noun(s) and the like may be used herein to describe various elements, these elements should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element from another and they do not limit the order of the noun(s). For example, a first element could be termed a second element, and similarly, a second element could be termed a first element, without departing from the scope of example embodiments. As used herein, the term “and / or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the listed terms.

[0038] As used herein, “at least one of the following: ” and “at least one of ” and similar wording, where the list of two or more elements are joined by “and” or “or”, mean at least any one of the elements, or at least any two or more of the elements, or at least all the elements.

[0039] As used herein, unless stated explicitly, performing a step “in response to A” does not indicate that the step is performed immediately after “A” occurs and one or more intervening steps may be included.

[0040] The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of example embodiments. As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises”, “comprising”, “has”, “having”, “includes” and / or “including”, when used herein, specify the presence of stated features, elements, and / or components etc., but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, elements, components and / or combinations thereof.

[0041] As used in this application, the term “circuitry” may refer to one or more or all of the following:(a) hardware-only circuit implementations (such as implementations in only analog and / or digital circuitry) and(b) combinations of hardware circuits and software, such as (as applicable):(i) a combination of analog and / or digital hardware circuit(s) with software / firmware and(ii) any portions of hardware processor(s) with software (including digital signal processor(s)), software, and memory(ies) that work together to cause an apparatus, such as a mobile phone or server, to perform various functions) and(c) hardware circuit(s) and or processor(s), such as a microprocessor(s) or a portion of a microprocessor(s), that requires software (e.g., firmware) for operation, but the software may not be present when it is not needed for operation.

[0042] This definition of circuitry applies to all uses of this term in this application, including in anyclaims. As a further example, as used in this application, the term circuitry also covers an implementation of merely a hardware circuit or processor (or multiple processors) or portion of a hardware circuit or processor and its (or their) accompanying software and / or firmware. The term circuitry also covers, for example and if applicable to the particular claim element, a baseband integrated circuit or processor integrated circuit for a mobile device or a similar integrated circuit in server, a cellular network device, or other computing or network device.

[0043] As used herein, the term “communication network” refers to a network following any suitable communication standards, such as New Radio (NR), Long Term Evolution (LTE), LTE-Advanced (LTE- A), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA), Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-loT) and so on. Furthermore, the communications between a terminal device and a network device in the communication network may be performed according to any suitable generation communication protocols, including, but not limited to, the first generation (1 G), the second generation (2G), 2.5G, 2.75G, the third generation (3G), the fourth generation (4G), 4.5G, the fifth generation (5G), 5.5G, the sixth generation (6G) communication protocols, and / or any other protocols either currently known or to be developed in the future. Embodiments of the present disclosure may be applied in various communication systems. Given the rapid development in communications, there will of course also be future type communication technologies and systems with which the present disclosure may be embodied. It should not be seen as limiting the scope of the present disclosure to only the aforementioned system.

[0044] As used herein, the term “network device” refers to a node in a communication network via which a terminal device accesses the network and receives services therefrom. The network device may refer to a base station (BS) or an access point (AP), for example, a node B (NodeB or NB), an evolved NodeB (eNodeB or eNB), an NR NB (also referred to as a gNB), a Remote Radio Unit (RRU), a radio header (RH), a remote radio head (RRH), a relay, an Integrated Access and Backhaul (I AB) node, a low power node such as a femto, a pico, a non-terrestrial network (NTN) or non-ground network device such as a satellite network device, a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite and a geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) satellite, an aircraft network device, and so forth, depending on the applied terminology and technology. In some example embodiments, radio access network (RAN) split architecture comprises a Centralized Unit (CU) and a Distributed Unit (DU) at an IAB donor node. An IAB node comprises a Mobile Terminal (IAB-MT) part that behaves like a UE toward the parent node, and a DU part of an IAB node behaves like a base station toward the next-hop IAB node.

[0045] The term “terminal device” refers to any end device that may be capable of wireless communication. By way of example rather than limitation, a terminal device may also be referred to as a communication device, user equipment (UE), a Subscriber Station (SS), a Portable Subscriber Station, a Mobile Station (MS), or an Access Terminal (AT). The terminal device may include, but notlimited to, a mobile phone, a cellular phone, a smart phone, voice over IP (VoIP) phones, wireless local loop phones, a tablet, a wearable terminal device, a personal digital assistant (PDA), portable computers, desktop computer, image capture terminal devices such as digital cameras, gaming terminal devices, music storage and playback appliances, vehicle-mounted wireless terminal devices, wireless endpoints, mobile stations, laptop-embedded equipment (LEE), laptop-mounted equipment (LME), USB dongles, smart devices, wireless customer-premises equipment (CPE), an Internet of Things (loT) device, a watch or other wearable, a head-mounted display (HMD), a vehicle, a drone, a medical device and applications (e.g., remote surgery), an industrial device and applications (e.g., a robot and / or other wireless devices operating in an industrial and / or an automated processing chain contexts), a consumer electronics device, a device operating on commercial and / or industrial wireless networks, and the like. The terminal device may also correspond to a Mobile Termination (MT) part of an IAB node (e.g., a relay node). In the following description, the terms “terminal device”, “communication device”, “terminal”, “user equipment” and “UE” may be used interchangeably.

[0046] As used herein, the term “resource,” “transmission resource,” “resource block,” “physical resource block” (PRB), “uplink resource,” or “downlink resource” may refer to any resource for performing a communication, for example, a communication between a terminal device and a network device, such as a resource in time domain, a resource in frequency domain, a resource in space domain, a resource in code domain, or any other combination of the time, frequency, space and / or code domain resource enabling a communication, and the like. In the following, unless explicitly stated, a resource in both frequency domain and time domain will be used as an example of a transmission resource for describing some example embodiments of the present disclosure. It is noted that example embodiments of the present disclosure are equally applicable to other resources in other domains.

[0047] FIG. 1 illustrates an example communication environment 100 in which example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented. In the communication environment 100, a first apparatus 110 and a second apparatus 120 can communicate with each other. In some example embodiments, the first apparatus 110 may comprise a terminal device (for example, a UE), and the second apparatus 120 may comprise a network device (for example, a gNB).

[0048] In the example of FIG. 1 , the first apparatus 110 may be a UE and the second apparatus 120 may be a base station serving the UE. The serving area of the second apparatus 120 may be called a cell 102.

[0049] It is to be understood that the number of first apparatus 110 and second apparatus 120 shown in FIG. 1 is given for the purpose of illustration without suggesting any limitations. The communication environment 100 may include any suitable number of first apparatus 110 and second apparatus 120. Although not shown, it would be appreciated that one or more additional devices may be located in the cell 102, and one or more additional cells may be deployed in the communication environment100.

[0050] In the following, for the purpose of illustration, some example embodiments are described with the first apparatus 110 operating as a terminal device (such as a UE) and the second apparatus 120 operating as a network device (such as a gNB). However, in some example embodiments, operations described in connection with a terminal device may be implemented at a network device or other device, and operations described in connection with a network device may be implemented at a terminal device or other device.

[0051] In some example embodiments, if the first apparatus 110 is a terminal device or included in a terminal device and the second apparatus 120 is a network device or is included in a network device, a link from the second apparatus 120 to the first apparatus 110 is referred to as a downlink (DL), and a link from the first apparatus 110 to the second apparatus 120 is referred to as an uplink (UL). In DL, the second apparatus 120 is a transmitting (TX) device (or a transmitter) and the first apparatus 110 is a receiving (RX) device (or a receiver). In UL, the first apparatus 110 is a TX device (or a transmitter) and the second apparatus 120 is a RX device (or a receiver). In some example embodiments, if the first apparatus 110 is a first terminal device (for example, a UE), and the second apparatus 120 is a second terminal device (for example, another UE), a link between the first apparatus 110 and the second apparatus 120 is referred to as sidelink (SL).

[0052] Communications in the communication environment 100 may be implemented according to any proper communication protocol(s), comprising, but not limited to, cellular communication protocols of the first generation (1 G), the second generation (2G), the third generation (3G), the fourth generation (4G), the fifth generation (5G), the sixth generation (6G), and the like, wireless local network communication protocols such as Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 and the like, and / or any other protocols currently known or to be developed in the future. Moreover, the communication may utilize any proper wireless communication technology, comprising but not limited to: Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA), Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Frequency Division Duplex (FDD), Time Division Duplex (TDD), Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple (OFDM), Discrete Fourier Transform spread OFDM (DFT-s-OFDM) and / or any other technologies currently known or to be developed in the future.

[0053] As mentioned above, the Al / ML model can be applied to different use cases, for example beam management. For the use case of the beam management, one or more best beams are predicted using the AI / ML model based on beam measurement.

[0054] Release (Rel)-18 and Rel-19 have proposed to leverage AI / ML models to predict the best beam(s) based on a limited set of measurements. Two sub-use cases are proposed. In spatial-domain prediction, the beam prediction is based on a limited set of measurements that does not contain anyhistorical information. In time-domain prediction, the beam prediction into the future is based on a limited set of measurements that contains historical information.

[0055] Measurements and prediction are performed based on two Beam Sets, that is, Set A and Set B. The Set A includes the complete set of beams over which the prediction will operate. The Set B includes the set of beams whose measurements are inputted to the AI / ML model (e.g., Level 1 Reference Signal Received Power (L1-RSRP), etc.).

[0056] Set B may be different from Set A (for space-domain and time-domain prediction). Set B may be a subset of Set A (for space-domain and time-domain prediction). The set B may be same as Set A (for time-domain prediction).

[0057] In RAN#102, Rel-19 work item on “New WID on Artificial Intelligence (AI)ZMachine Learning (ML) for NR Air Interface” is endorsed. The objective of the work item (Wl) is provided in Table 1.Table 1

[0058] In Rel-19 discussions, the following agreements in Table 2 are related to configuring Set A and Set B, reporting inference results, and performance monitoring.Table 2_• FFS on definition of reported RSRP when applicable• FFS on other information in the report with potential down selection among the following options• Opt 3: Beam information on predicted Top K beam(s) among a set of beams and probability information of predicted Top K beam(s) among a set of beams o FFS on the quantization method of probability information o Probability information is the probability of the beam to be the Top 1 or Top K beam• Opt 4: Beam information on predicted Top K beam(s) among a set of beams, RSRP of predicted Top K beam(s) among a set of beams, and confidence information of the RSRP o FFS on definition of reported RSRP o FFS on the definition and quantization method of confidence information• Other options are not precluded. where the set of beams is Set A, i.e., the beams for UE prediction.ConclusionFor UE sided model at least for inference, for measurement, the configuration of Set B,• take the current CSI framework as the starting pointAgreementFor BM-Case1 and BM-Case2 with a UE-side AI / ML model:• Support Type 1 performance monitoring, including the following two options: o Option 1 (NW-side performance monitoring):■ UE sends a report to NW (for the calculation of performance metric at NW)• Measurement results from resource set for monitoring, e.g., L1-RSRP and / or RS index is supported as the content of the report• FFS on other contents■ The report is at least configured / triggered by NW■ Note: this may or may not have additional spec impact o Option 2 (UE-assisted performance monitoring):■ UE calculates performance metric(s)• FFS how to report and what to report o FFS whether to trigger the report based on event(s) for Option 1 and / or Option 2• FFS Type 2 performance monitoringAgreementFor UE-sided model, for the quantization of a RSRP value at least for the report of inference results, support o Support differential RSRP reporting with legacy quantization step and range for L1 -RSRP reporting o For BM-Case 1, support differential RSRP report among multiple beams o For BM-Case 2, support differential RSRP report among multiple beams over multiple time instances■ FFS detailsAgreementFor UE-sided model at least for BM Case-1 , for inference results report• Two resource sets can be configured for Set A and Set B separately in the CSI report configuration for the report o FFS whether support only resource set for Set B is configured

[0059] Other background information considers several technical aspects of the CSI framework, configuration, L1 -RSRP reporting, and UCI bit sequence generation. All these aspects are described in technical specification (TS) like TS 38.306, TR 38.831 , TS 38.214, and TS 38.212 and are summarized as follows.

[0060] TS 38.306 clause 4.2.7 describes CSI reporting framework capability. This clause describes the capability of the UE to support CSI reporting. It includes parameters defining the maximum number of periodic / aperiodic CSI reports that can be configured per Component Carrier (CC), per Bandwidth Part (BWP) and per beam. Moreover, it specifies the concurrent CSI reports per CC that the UE can measure and process, including periodic, semi-persistent and aperiodic CSI, including beam reports.

[0061] TR 38.831 describes CSI report configuration. It describes the configuration parameters used to set up periodic, aperiodic or semi-persistent CSI reports sent on the PUCCH or PUSCH for a particular cell or triggered by downlink control information (DCI). It includes fields such as report quantity, frequency domain configuration, time domain behaviour and channel measurement resource allocation that affect how the UE perform reports based on different configurations.

[0062] TS 38.214 clause 5.2.1 describes L1 RSRP reporting. This clause defines how the UE calculates and reports L1 -RSRP. It covers configurations involving CSI-RS resources, SS / PBCH block resources or both, detailing limitations on the number of CSI-RS resource sets and resources within those sets. It also explains how L1-RSRP is quantized and reported based on different scenarios, considering group-based reporting, differential reporting, and channel measurement timing with respect to SS / PBCH or NZP CSI-RS.

[0063] TS 38.212, clauses 6.3.1.1 and 6.3.2.1 describe UCI bit sequence generation. This clause deals with the generation of UCI bit sequences for uplink transmission. It defines the specific order or mapping of CSI fields within a report for different reporting scenarios such as CRI / RSRP, SSBRI / RSRP or Capability Index reporting. It provides details on the structure of the CSI reports, including CRI, RSRP and Capability Index, for transmission within the UCI.

[0064] These descriptions are integral for defining how CSI is handled, reported, and utilized in the communication system by UE. Each section covers specific technical aspects, configurations and procedures related to CSI reporting, L1-RSRP calculation and UCI bit sequence generation, which are critical for establishing and maintaining the communication link between NW and UE, while enabling efficient use of CSI for data transmission and reception.

[0065] The measurement of monitoring RS resources is challenging due to the significant burden imposed on both the NW and UE. Following a basic approach, the NW is required to transmit the full Set A of beams which may not be practical for large codebooks, while the UE is required to measure each beam of Set A before determining the ground truth values, which can be time-consuming and may lead to increased UE resources consumption.

[0066] On the other hand, the down selection of the subset of Set A of beams to configure as monitoring RS resource is not straightforward to put in practice. One possibility is to use in part or in full the Top-K beams predicted by the UE and reported to NW with a beam prediction report. Configuring Top-K beam as monitoring RS resource introduces a complication because the Top-K beams often change after each inference.

[0067] When using periodic or semi-persistent CSI reporting for performance monitoring, the set of RS resources for monitoring is associated with the CSI report. This requires additional signaling to indicate the Top-K beam subset for monitoring RS resources before each monitoring instance, resulting in significant signaling overhead.

[0068] In the context of Aperiodic CSI reports, the current main limitation to configure full or part of Top-K beams as monitoring RS resources is that the UE is provided with higher-layer configuration a Trigger State List, where each trigger is linked to specific CSI resource settings. Given the large amount of Top-K beams combination, it is not feasible to define for each Top-K beam set a trigger state and dedicated resource set.

[0069] Therefore, there is lack of solutions to indicate with low signaling overhead the monitoring RS resources when determined based on any of the combinations of Top-K beams as indicated by predictions. The present disclosure tackles the above problems and try to address the following aspects.

[0070] A first aspect is about the down-selection of the monitoring RS resources - which may be a subset of beams taken from Set A. The following questions are still not clear, how to perform such selection, whether UE is required to report the inference results before triggering the performance monitoring.

[0071] A second aspect is about the procedure for configuring the UE with monitoring RS resource set when the selection depends by the inference report. Here, there is need to study methods that allow to configure UE with full or partial set of Top-K beams as monitoring RS resources.

[0072] In example embodiments of the present disclosure provide a solution for selecting and configuring monitoring RS resources. In this solution, a first apparatus (for example, a terminal device) is enabled with beam prediction. A second apparatus (for example, a network device) indicates the first apparatus to activate a trigger state. At least partially based on the activated trigger state, the first apparatus determines at least monitoring RS resource (which is also referred to as a monitoring RS resource set) for performance monitoring of the beam prediction.

[0073] In some example embodiment, the second apparatus selects the at least one monitoring RS resource. The second apparatus determines at least one monitoring RS resource from RS resources configured to the first apparatus for beam prediction, and thus determines at least one trigger state for the performance monitoring of the beam prediction. Then, based on the at least one monitoring RS resource, the second apparatus transmits, to the first apparatus, activation information to activate the at least one trigger state. The first apparatus receives the activation information from the second apparatus and determines, based on the at least one trigger state, at least one monitoring RS resource from the configured RS resources. Then the second apparatus transmits, to the first apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource. The first apparatus receives, from the second apparatus, the reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource and performs the performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the received reference signal.

[0074] Alternatively, in some example embodiment, the first apparatus selects the at least one monitoring RS resource. The first apparatus transmits, to the second apparatus, an inference reportfor beam prediction. The second apparatus transmits, to the first apparatus, activation information to activate a trigger state with a predefined identifier for performance monitoring of the beam prediction. The first apparatus receives the activation information with the predefined identifier, and determines at least one monitoring RS, resource based on at least one of the inference report or a predetermined RS resource set corresponding to the activated trigger state. Correspondingly, the second apparatus determines the at least one monitoring RS resource based on at least one of the inference report or the predetermined RS resource se. The second apparatus transmits, to the first apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource. The first apparatus receives, from the second apparatus, the reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource and performs the performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the received reference signal.

[0075] Through the above solution, it may enable proper selection of monitoring RS resources with a low signaling overhead and improve the effect of the performance monitoring.

[0076] Example embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0077] In some example embodiments, the monitoring RS resource set is selected by the second apparatus, for example, the network device. Reference is now made to FIG. 2 to describe some example embodiments. FIG. 2 illustrates a signaling flow 200 for performance monitoring of the beam prediction in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. The signaling flow 200 involves the first apparatus 110 and the second apparatus 120. For purposes of illustration, the signaling flow 200 will be described with respect to FIG. 1 . The first apparatus 110 is enabled with beam prediction. In some example embodiments, the first apparatus 110 may be or be comprised in a terminal device, and the second apparatus 120 may be or be comprised in a network device.

[0078] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus 120 may transmit (201 ), to the first apparatus 110, configuration information for corresponding a trigger state of one or more trigger states to an RS resource set in RS resources configured for the beam prediction. The first apparatus 110 may receive (202) the configuration information from the second apparatus 120.

[0079] In an example, the first apparatus 110 may be configured with a channel state information (CSI) report configuration linked to a CSI resource setting list that may include one or more RS resource sets. Based on the configuration, the first apparatus 110 may be configured with one or more trigger states (e.g., in the form of a trigger state list). For example, for Periodic / Semi-persistent reporting, a single RS resource set may be defined, while for aperiodic reporting, more than one aperiodic resource set (e.g. resourceSetld: X_1 and resourceSetld: X_2) may be defined. Each trigger state may be associated to a specific CSI resource setting and correspond to one RS resource set from the resource setting. That is to say, the first apparatus 110 may select the RS resource set from the RS resources based on the trigger state.

[0080] In some example embodiments, the one or more trigger states may be defined for the performance monitoring of the beam prediction. In an example, a separate trigger state list (e.g., Monitoring Trigger State List) may be defined for the monitoring. The Monitoring Trigger State List may be an Aperiodic Monitoring Trigger State List or a Semi-Persistent (SP) Monitoring Trigger State List depending on whether CSI Aperiodic Trigger State List is used or CSI Semi-Persistent Trigger State List is used.

[0081] In some example embodiments, instead of defining new one or more trigger states for monitoring, the first apparatus 110 may reuse existing one or more trigger states. In some example embodiments, the one or more trigger states may be reused from one or more of CSI aperiodic trigger states. In some example embodiments, the one or more trigger states may be reused from one or more of CSI semi persistent on physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH, trigger states. For example, the first apparatus 110 may be defined to consider one or more of the triggers states of the trigger state list (from AP-CSI trigger state list or SP-CSI on PUSCH trigger state list) as monitoring trigger state (s).

[0082] Continue with the signaling flow 200. The first apparatus 110 may perform beam measurement for example on beams of Set B, and perform beam prediction based on a result of the beam measurement. In some example embodiments, the first apparatus 110 may transmit (203), to the second apparatus 120, at least one of an inference report for the beam prediction or a measurement report for the beam measurement. The second apparatus 120 may receive (204) the at least one of the inference report or the measurement report.

[0083] The second apparatus 120 determines (205) the at least one monitoring RS resource from RS resources configured to the first apparatus 110 for beam prediction. In some example embodiments, the second apparatus 120 may determine the at least one monitoring RS resource based on the at least one of the inference report or the measurement report received from the first apparatus 110.

[0084] I n example embodiments of the present disclosure, the second apparatus 120 may determine the monitoring RS resource set from partial / subset of Set A (the complete set of beams over which the beam prediction will operate) by using different selection approaches.

[0085] In some example embodiments, the inference report received by the second apparatus 120 may indicate a beam predicted by the first apparatus 110. The second apparatus 120 may determine at least one beam from neighbor beams of the predicted beam and determine the at least one monitoring RS resource based on an RS resource corresponding to the at least one beam. For example, the first apparatus 110 may predict the Top-1 beam and report to the second apparatus 120 the Top-1 predicted beam. Then the second apparatus 120 may select the nearest neighbors (e.g., 4 neighbors including the strongest predicted beam) and determine the subset of Channel StateInformation-Reference Signal (CSI-RS) beams for monitoring RS resources.

[0086] In some example embodiments, the inference report received by the second apparatus 120 may indicate at least one beam predicted by the first apparatus 110. The second apparatus 120 may determine the at least one monitoring RS resource based on RS resources corresponding to one or more of the at least one beam predicted by the first apparatus. For example, the first apparatus 110 may predict the Top-K beams and report to the second apparatus 120 the Top-K predicted beam. The second apparatus 120 may select the subset of CSI-RS beams for monitoring RS resources corresponding to one or more of the Top-K predicted beams reported. Depending on the second apparatus, other beams in Set A may be selected. In other words, the selection may be extended beyond the Top-K beams.

[0087] In some example embodiments, the at least one of the inference report or the measurement report received by the second apparatus 120 may indicate at least one synchronization signal block (SSB) beam. The second apparatus 120 may determine the at least on monitoring RS resource based on RS resources associated with the at least one SSB beam. For example, the first apparatus 110 may measure reference signal receiving power (RSRP) values for all SSB beams and identify the SSB beam with the highest RSRP value and report to the second apparatus 120. Alternatively, the first apparatus 110 may predict the SSB beam and report the predicted SSB beam to the second apparatus 120. The second apparatus 120 may use a predefined mapping to associate each SSB beam to one or more CSI-RS beams for monitoring RS resources.

[0088] Continue with the signaling flow 200. The second apparatus 120 determines (206) at least one trigger state to activate for performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the at least one monitoring RS resource. Then, the second apparatus 120 transmits (207), to the first apparatus 110, activation information to activate the at least one trigger state. Accordingly, the first apparatus 110 receives (208), from the second apparatus 120, the activation information to activate the at least one trigger state. The activation information may be included in downlink control information (DCI) or a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) or combination of DCI and MAC CE. The first apparatus 110 then determines (209), based on the at least one trigger state, at least one monitoring RS resource from RS resources configured for the beam prediction.

[0089] In some example embodiments, based on the activation information, the first apparatus 110 may determine, from the RS resources configured for the beam prediction, at least one RS resource set corresponding to the at least one trigger state respectively. The first apparatus 110 may determine the at least one monitoring RS resource based on the at least one RS resource set. In an example, the first apparatus 110 may receive an activation message (a DCI message for example) with the CSI request field set to Trigger State Id to activate. Based on the Trigger State Id, the first apparatus 110 may select the corresponding RS resource set from the CSI resource setting. The first apparatus 110may determine monitoring RS resources based on RS resource set associated to Trigger State Id. This approach is applicable to the case where a subset of Set A happens to be one of the RS resource sets. For example, Top-K beams may include beam#6, beam#7, and beam#8 and there is already a CSI-RS resource set with RS#6, RS#7, RS#8 configured to the first apparatus 110. In this case, Trigger State ID corresponding to the CSI-RS resource set with RS#6, RS#7, RS#8 may be activated.

[0090] In some example embodiments, the at least one monitoring RS resource may comprise a combination of a plurality of RS resource sets, and the activation information may indicate to activate a plurality of trigger states corresponding to the plurality of RS resource sets respectively. The first apparatus 110 may determine the at least one monitoring RS resource by combining a plurality of RS resource sets corresponding to the plurality of trigger states respectively. The plurality of trigger states may be indicated in different activation messages or different request fields of the same activation message.

[0091] In some example embodiments, the activation information may comprise a plurality of activation messages (for example a plurality of DCI messages), and an activation message of the plurality of activation messages may indicate to activate one of the plurality of trigger states. In an example, the first apparatus 110 may receive a first DCI message with the CSI request field set to the first Trigger State Id to activate and a second DCI message with the CSI request field set to the second Trigger State Id to activate. Based on the first Trigger State Id, the first apparatus 110 may select the first RS resource set from the CSI resource setting and based on the second Trigger State Id, the first apparatus 110 may select the second RS resource set from the CSI resource setting. Then, the first apparatus may determine monitoring RS resources by combining the first RS resource set and the second RS resource set. This approach is applicable to the case where a subset of Set A is not entirely included in one of the RS resource set, but may be derived by combining two resource sets. For example, Top-K beams may include beam#6, beam#7, beam#8 and there is a first resource set with RS#6, RS#7 and a second resource set with RS#8. As such, the two DCI messages each of which activate a trigger state corresponding to one of the two resource sets are both needed.

[0092] It is to be understood that the number of the activation messages, the trigger states and the RS resource sets described above are only for the purpose of explanation without any limitation.

[0093] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus 120 may determine a bitmask indicating presence or absence of RS resources within an RS resource set based on a relation between the at least one monitoring RS resources and the at least on RS resource set. The second apparatus 120 may transmit, to the first apparatus 110, at least one of the bitmask or an identifier of the bitmask. Correspondingly, the first apparatus 110 may receive, from the second apparatus 120, at least one of the bitmask or an identifier of the bitmask. In this case, the first apparatus 110 may determine the at least one monitoring RS resource from the at least one RS resource set based onthe bitmask.

[0094] In an example, the first apparatus 110 may receive the DCI message with the CSI request field, wherein the field values include a Trigger State Id to activate and a bitmask to indicate the presence or absence of specific RS resources within a RS resource set. The first apparatus 110 may select the RS resource set from the CSI resource setting based on Trigger State Id and remove (or add) specific RS resources within the RS resource set based on the received or indicated bitmask. This approach is applicable to the case where a RS resource set corresponds to more beams or less beams than those required for subset of Set A. That is to say, some of the RS resources should be removed from or added to the RS resource set so that the resulting subset may match with subset of Set A. For example, Top-K beams include beam#6, beam#7, beam#8 and there is a resource set with RS#6, RS#7, RS#8, RS#9. The bitmask may indicate to not consider RS#9 in the resource set.

[0095] In some example embodiments, the identifier of the bitmask may be transmitted and the second apparatus 120 may transmit, to the first apparatus, information for determining the bitmask from the transmitted identifier. The identifier of the bitmask may be received and the first apparatus 110 may receive, from the second apparatus 120, information for determining the bitmask from the received identifier. In an example, a codepoint may be used to provide a unique identifier for a bitmask to indicate the absence (or presence) of specific RS resources within a RS resource set. The rules for determining the bitmask from the codepoint may be communicated to the first apparatus 110 in different ways, for example, through initial configuration provided with radio resource control (RRC) or later with a low layer signaling provided (for example, with MAC-CE).

[0096] As mentioned above, DCI and MAC CE may be used in combination to carry the activation information. As an example, at least one DCI may include at least one trigger state ID to activate, and the MAC CE may include the bitmask or include a codepoint to provide the unique identifier for the bitmask. As another example, the MAC CE may include at least one trigger state ID to activate, and DCI may include the bitmask or include a codepoint to provide the unique identifier for the bitmask.

[0097] Continue with the signaling flow 200. The second apparatus 120 transmits (210), to the first apparatus 110, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource. Correspondingly, the first apparatus 110 receives (211 ), from the second apparatus 120, the reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource and performs (212) the performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the received reference signal.

[0098] In an example, the first apparatus 110 may perform performance monitoring using as monitoring RS resources the selected RS resource set. The performance monitoring may involve measuring RSRP values for the monitoring RS resources, selecting the beam with the highest RSRP and determining a ground truth sample (e.g., the indices as the best beam ID) based on partial / subset of Set A. In other words, the ground truth sample may be derived by performing measurement on theat least one monitoring RS resource.

[0099] It is noted that for determining performance monitoring metrics such as beam prediction accuracy, Mean RSRP Error, 95-th percentile RSRP Error, etc., the first apparatus 110 or the second apparatus 120 may require a set of ground truth samples.

[0100] In some example embodiments, in the case that the first apparatus 110 is indicated with semi-persistent report configuration, the second apparatus 120 may transmit (213), to the first apparatus 110, deactivation information to deactivate the at least one trigger state. The first apparatus 110 may receive (214) the deactivation information and in response to the deactivation information, transmit (215), to the second apparatus 120, a monitoring report based on the set of ground truth samples. The second apparatus may receive (216) the monitoring report from the first apparatus 110. If Option 1 for performance monitoring is employed, the monitoring report may include the set of ground truth sample and predicted results. For example, for the case of Semi-Persistent Report configuration, the active Trigger State may be deactivated with the transmission of the DCI command to deactivate the Trigger State when the set ground truth samples is sufficiently large. If Option 2 for performance monitoring is employed, the monitoring report may include one or more performance metrics determined based on the set of ground truth samples.

[0101] In some example embodiments, in the case that the first apparatus 110 is indicated with aperiodic report configuration, if the set of ground truth samples for the performance monitoring reaches a threshold sample number (which may be predefined or indicated by the second apparatus 120), the first apparatus 110 may transmit (215), to the second apparatus 120, a monitoring report about the set of ground truth samples. The second apparatus 120 may receive (216) the monitoring report from the first apparatus 110. In other words, for the case of Aperiodic Report configuration, the transmission of the DCI command to activate the Trigger State may be repeated until the set ground truth samples is sufficiently large. If Option 2 for performance monitoring is employed, the monitoring report may include one or more performance metrics determined based on the set of ground truth samples.

[0102] As mentioned above, in some example embodiments, the monitoring RS resource set may be selected by the first apparatus 110. In this case, the second apparatus 120 may have common understanding of the monitoring RS resource selection. FIG. 3 illustrates a signaling flow 300 for performance monitoring of beam prediction in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. The signaling flow 300 involves the first apparatus 110 and the second apparatus 120. For purposes of illustration, the signaling flow 300 will be described with respect to FIG. 1 . The first apparatus 110 is enabled with beam prediction. In some example embodiments, the first apparatus 110 may be or be comprised in a terminal device, and the second apparatus 120 may be or be comprised in a network device.

[0103] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus 120 may transmit (301 ), to the first apparatus 110, configuration information for corresponding a trigger state of one or more trigger states to an RS resource set in RS resources configured for the beam prediction. The first apparatus 110 may receive (302) the configuration information from the second apparatus 120.

[0104] In an example, the first apparatus 110 may be configured with a CSI report configuration linked to a CSI resource setting list that may include one or more RS resource sets. Based on the configuration, the first apparatus 110 may be configured with one or more trigger states (e.g., in the form of a trigger state list). For example, for Periodic / Semi-persistent reporting, a single RS resource set may be defined, while for aperiodic reporting, more than one aperiodic resource set (e.g. resourceSetld: X_1 and resourceSetld: X_2) may be defined. Each trigger state may be associated to a specific CSI resource setting and correspond to one RS resource set from the resource setting. That is to say, the first apparatus 110 may select the RS resource set from the RS resources based on the trigger state.

[0105] In some example embodiments, the one or more trigger states may be defined for the performance monitoring of the beam prediction. In an example, a separate trigger state list (e.g., Monitoring Trigger State List) may be defined for the monitoring. The Monitoring Trigger State List may be an Aperiodic Monitoring Trigger State List or a SP Monitoring Trigger State List depending on whether CSI Aperiodic Trigger State List is used or CSI Semi-Persistent Trigger State List is used.

[0106] In some example embodiments, instead of defining new one or more trigger states for monitoring, the first apparatus 110 may reuse existing one or more trigger states. In some example embodiments, the one or more trigger states may be reused from one or more of CSI aperiodic trigger states. In some example embodiments, the one or more trigger states may be reused from one or more of CSI semi persistent on physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH, trigger states. For example, the first apparatus 110 may be defined to consider one or more of the triggers states of the trigger state list (from AP-CSI trigger state list or SP-CSI on PUSCH trigger state list) as monitoring trigger state (s).

[0107] The first apparatus 110 transmits (303), to the second apparatus 120, an inference report for beam prediction. The inference report may indicate at least one beam predicted by the first apparatus 110, for example, Top-K beams. The second apparatus 120 receives (304) the inference report from the first apparatus 110.

[0108] Continue with the signaling flow 200. The second apparatus 120 transmits (305), to the first apparatus 110, activation information to activate a trigger state with a predefined identifier for performance monitoring of the beam prediction. The first apparatus 110 receives (306) the activation information from the second apparatus 120.

[0109] The second apparatus 120 determines (307) at least one monitoring RS resource based onat least one of the inference report or a predetermined RS resource set corresponding to the activated trigger state. If the activated trigger state has the predefined identifier, the first apparatus 110 determines (308) the at least one monitoring RS resource based on the at least one of the inference report or the predetermined RS resource set corresponding to the activated trigger state. In this case, the first apparatus 110 and the second apparatus 120 may have the common understanding in selection of the monitoring RS resource.

[0110] For example, the first apparatus 110 may be defined to determine the monitoring RS resource set based at least on the latest inference instance. In this case, the second apparatus 120 may also get the common understanding to determine the same monitoring RS resource set. Selection of the monitoring RS resources may be based on best Top-K beams: The first apparatus 110 may predict the Top-K beams and report to the second apparatus 120 of the Top-K predicted beams. The first apparatus 110 may assume the CSI-RS resources associated with Top-K beams as the monitoring RS resources. The first apparatus 110 may update the assumption when there is new Top-K predicted beams.

[0111] In some example embodiments, the inference report may indicate at least one predicted beam. The first apparatus 110 and the second apparatus 120 may determine the at least one monitoring RS resource based on RS resources corresponding to the at least one predicted beam.

[0112] In some example embodiments, if the beam prediction indicates an update to the at least one predicted beam, the first apparatus 110 may update the at least one monitoring RS resource based on the update to the at least one predicted beam and transmit, to the second apparatus 120, an updated inference report to indicate the update to the at least one predicted beam. The second apparatus 120 may receive, from the first apparatus 110, the updated inference report indicating an update to the at least one predicted beam and update the at least one monitoring RS resource based on the update to the at least one predicted beam.

[0113] The second apparatus 120 transmits (309) to the first apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource. The first apparatus 110 receives (310), from the second apparatus 120, the reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

[0114] In some example embodiments, the inference report may indicate at least one predicted beam, and the second apparatus 120 may transmit, to the first apparatus 110, the reference signal corresponding to the at least one predicted beam by at least one of: using RS resources allocated to the predetermined RS resource set, or using RS resources corresponding to the at least one predicted beam in place of the RS resources allocated to the predetermined RS resource set. The first apparatus 110 may receive, from the second apparatus 120, the reference signal corresponding to the at least one predicted beam by at least one of: using RS resources allocated to the predetermined RS resource set, or using RS resources corresponding to the at least one predicted beam in place of the RSresources allocated to the predetermined RS resource set.

[0115] For example, the UE receives a DCI message with the CSI request field set to pre-defined Trigger State Id (e.g., ID = 1 is consider as the monitoring trigger state) to activate. Based on the Trigger State Id, the UE determines the corresponding RS resources from the UE assumption on latest monitoring RS resources (as mentioned before, UE assumes the CSI-RS resources associated with Top-K beams as the monitoring RS resources).

[0116] In this example, the NW is expected to transmit CSI-RS corresponding to the monitoring RS resource set assumed by the UE. The parameters that are involved with the transmission (e.g., time offset from the DCI trigger, QCL information, and other information) may be pre-configured to the UE in relation to the monitoring trigger state. Exact CSI-RS resources are anyways having a physical meaning and configured generic for all CSI-RS resource sets. In summary, resources considered by the UE for monitoring RS resource set may be defined with all parameters that requires in AP-CSI-RS reception or SP-CSI-RS reception.

[0117] In some example embodiments, the resource set in this case may be a fixed resource set, e.g. RS#0, RS#1 , RS#3. Then the gNB may adjust the beams to transmit the Top-K predicted beams on those resources.

[0118] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus 120 may determine parameters for transmitting the reference signal based on at least one of: configuration information associated with the activated trigger state, or RS resources corresponding to the at least one predicted beam. Correspondingly, the first apparatus 110 may determine parameters for receiving the reference signal based on at least one of: configuration information associated with the activated trigger state, or RS resources corresponding to the at least one predicted beam.

[0119] The first apparatus 110 performs (311) the performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the received reference signal. In an example, the first apparatus 110 may perform performance monitoring using as monitoring RS resources the selected RS resource set. The performance monitoring may involve measuring RSRP values for the monitoring RS resources, selecting the beam with the highest RSRP and determining a ground truth sample (e.g., the indices as the best beam ID) based on partial / subset of Set A.

[0120] In some example embodiments, in the case that the first apparatus 110 is indicated with semi-persistent report configuration, the second apparatus 120 may transmit (312), to the first apparatus 110, deactivation information to deactivate the at least one trigger state. The first apparatus 110 may receive (313) the deactivation information and in response to the deactivation information, transmit (314), to the second apparatus 120, a monitoring report based on the set of ground truth samples. The second apparatus may receive (315) the monitoring report from the first apparatus 110. If Option 1 for performance monitoring is employed, the monitoring report may include the set ofground truth sample and predicted results. For example, for the case of Semi-Persistent Report configuration, the active Trigger State may be deactivated with the transmission of the DCI command to deactivate the Trigger State when the set ground truth samples is sufficiently large. If Option 2 for performance monitoring is employed, the monitoring report may include one or more performance metrics determined based on the set of ground truth samples.

[0121] In some example embodiments, in the case that the first apparatus 110 is indicated with aperiodic report configuration, if the set of ground truth samples for the performance monitoring reaches a threshold sample number (which may be predefined or indicated by the second apparatus 120), the first apparatus 110 may transmit (314), to the second apparatus 120, a monitoring report about the set of ground truth samples. The second apparatus 120 may receive (315) the monitoring report from the first apparatus 110. In other words, for the case of Aperiodic Report configuration, the transmission of the DCI command to activate the Trigger State may be repeated until the set ground truth samples is sufficiently large. If Option 2 for performance monitoring is employed, the monitoring report may include one or more performance metrics determined based on the set of ground truth samples.

[0122] Some example embodiments are described above. Some more examples regarding selection of the monitoring RS resources will be described with reference to FIG. 4, and some examples regarding configuring of the monitoring RS resources will be described with reference to FIG. 5.

[0123] FIG. 4 illustrates a high-level signaling diagram 400 illustrating key aspects of the procedure for selecting the monitoring RS resource set. The high-level signaling diagram 400 includes UE 410 and Network (NW) 420.

[0124] As shown in FIG. 4, the UE 410 receives (401) RRC configuration (e.g., that contain CSI- MeasConfig, CS I -ReportConfig, and other CSI measurement and reporting parameters). At least one CSI-ReportConfig (e.g., CSI-ReportConfig_x) is enabling ML beam prediction at the UE 410 side.

[0125] It is noted that Set A and Set B for beam prediction (BP) operation is provided to the UE 410 by the same CS I -ReportConfig .

[0126] The procedure 402 for selecting the monitoring RS resource set may be performed then. The procedure may be repeated at each inference step, since the ML model inference outcome may change the combination of Top-K predicted beams used to determine the monitoring RS resources.

[0127] Beam prediction (inference operation) associated with the CSI-ReportConfig_x may be performed. For example, as shown in FIG. 4, the Network 410 transmits (403) measurement RSs (Set B) to the UE 410. The UE 410 performs (404) ML model inference based on measurement of RSs.

[0128] In one of the variants provided above, the UE 410 directly utilizes the Top-K predicted beams from the most recent inference instance as the monitoring RS resources. The UE 410 determines (405) monitoring RS resource set.

[0129] The UE 410 reports (406) beam predictions (e.g., Top-K predicted beam(s) in Set A) to the NW 420. Report happens as described in the configuration associated with the CSI-ReportConfig_x.

[0130] The NW 420 determines (407) the monitoring RS resources according to one of the approaches described above. Approaches include selection based on best neighbor, selection based on best Top-K beams and selection based on best SSB beam. Details for each approach can be found above.

[0131] For the one of the variants provided above, the NW 420 also receives an inference report, containing the Top-K beams that are most likely to be relevant for monitoring. Therefore, the NW 420 and the UE 410 may get a common understanding of the most relevant beams for monitoring. Based on this common understanding between the NW 420 and the UE 410, the NW 420 may be able to transmit the beams corresponding to the monitoring RS determined by UE 410 and known at the NW 420 from the inference report.

[0132] FIG. 5 illustrates a high-level signaling diagram 500 illustrating key aspects of the procedure for configuring the monitoring RS resource set and steps for performing monitoring operations for Option 1 and Option 2. The high-level signaling diagram 500 includes UE 410 and NW 420.

[0133] As shown in FIG. 5, the UE 410 receives (501) RRC configuration (e.g., that contain CSI- MeasConfig, CSI-ReportConfig, and other CSI measurement and reporting parameters), where at least one CSI-ReportConfig (e.g., CSI-ReportConfig_x) is enabling ML beam prediction at the UE 410 side.

[0134] Before proceeding, it may be assumed that the monitoring RS resources are known at least at the NW 420 and optionally at the UE 410. The monitoring RS resources are used to determine the Trigger State. The NW 420 determines the appropriate trigger state and assigns a unique Trigger State Id to the trigger. Examples of configurations are provided in Table 3 and Table 4.Table 3: Example of CSI Trigger State in CSI Aperiodic Trigger State ListTable 4: Example of CSI Request Field in DCI Format 0_10135] For the one of the variants provided above (for Option 2), the NW 420 may use Triggerstate = 1 (fixed state defined in the configuration that triggers monitoring, this may be associated with a fixed RS resource set) to transmit monitoring RS resources corresponding to the UE 410 assumption. The NW 420 does not have to configure RS resource set with a trigger state, and it will get keep updated based in Top-K.

[0136] For the other variants provided above, the NW 420 may use any other of the Trigger State associated with RS resource set. In this case, the NW 420 may configure RS resource set with a trigger state.

[0137] The NW 420 transmits (502), to the UE 410, DCI message including Monitoring Trigger State Id to activate the AP reporting or SP reporting on PUSCH. The Monitoring Trigger State ID may be associated to a specific type of reporting for monitoring where the UE 410 may have a specific behavior based on the performance monitoring configuration.

[0138] In Option 1 for performance monitoring, the UE 410 may determine the report and transmit the CSI report back to the NW 420 in the uplink for each AP / SP triggering. The NW 420 may collect multiple monitoring reports and inference reports to determine the monitoring metrics for the set of samples collected.

[0139] In Option 2 for performance monitoring, the UE 410 may use the inference results and measurements of monitoring RS resources to determine a performance monitoring metrics. The UE 410 may transmit the CSI report back to the NW 420 in the uplink. Alternatively, the UE 410 may defer the transmission of the CSI report back to the NW 420 at each AP / SP triggering, and report per set of samples.

[0140] The UE 410 determines (503) the monitoring RS resources based on the Trigger State received. When there is a fixed set of RS resources associated with the Trigger State received, the UE 410 may derive the parameters for receiving the monitoring RS resources from pre-configuration (in relation to the monitoring trigger state) or based on the RS resources corresponding to the Top-K beams predicted in the latest ML model inference.

[0141] Measurement of monitoring RS resources transmitted by the NW 420 and performing monitoring operations such as RSRP measurements may be performed. The NW 420 may transmit(504) monitoring RS resources to the UE 410. The UE 410 may perform (505) performance monitoring. For example, the UE 410 may identify the monitoring RS resource (and its associated beam) that has the highest RSRP value and determine the Ground Truth Sample. The UE 410 may report (506) measurements on monitoring RS resources to the NW 420. Then the UE 410 may determine (507) monitoring performance metrics(s) and report (508) performance metrics to the NW 420.

[0142] The UE 410 may repeat the performing monitoring operations when configured to report per set of samples. In Option 2 for performance monitoring, the UE 410 may transmit (509) the CSI report back to the NW 420, including the monitoring metrics determined based on set of samples.

[0143] The action of transmitting (509) the CSI report may be considered in case of SP reporting on PUSCH to deactivate the report corresponding to the Monitoring Trigger State ID.

[0144] FIG. 6A shows a flowchart of an example method 600A implemented at the first apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the method 600A will be described from the perspective of the first apparatus 110 in FIG. 1.

[0145] At block 610, the first apparatus 110 receives, from a second apparatus, activation information to activate at least one trigger state for performance monitoring of beam prediction.

[0146] At block 620, the first apparatus 110 determines, based on the at least one trigger state, at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource from RS resources configured for the beam prediction.

[0147] At block 630, the first apparatus 110 receives, from the second apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

[0148] At block 640, the first apparatus 110 performs the performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the received reference signal.

[0149] In some example embodiments, the method 600A further comprises: determining, from the RS resources configured for the beam prediction, at least one RS resource set corresponding to the at least one trigger state respectively; and determining the at least one monitoring RS resource based on the at least one RS resource set.

[0150] In some example embodiments, the method 600A further comprises: determining the at least one monitoring RS resource by combining a plurality of RS resource sets corresponding to the plurality of trigger states respectively.

[0151] In some example embodiments, the activation information comprises a plurality of activation messages, and an activation message of the plurality of activation messages indicates to activate one of the plurality of trigger states.

[0152] In some example embodiments, the method 600A further comprises: receiving, from the second apparatus, at least one of a bitmask or an identifier of the bitmask, the bitmask indicatingpresence or absence of RS resources within an RS resource set, and wherein the at least one monitoring RS resource is determined from the at least one RS resource set based on the bitmask.

[0153] In some example embodiments, the method 600A further comprises: receiving, from the second apparatus, information for determining the bitmask from the received identifier.

[0154] In some example embodiments, the method 600A further comprises: transmitting, to the second apparatus, at least one of an inference report for the beam prediction or a measurement report for beam measurement, wherein the at least one trigger state is determined based on the at least one of the inference report or the measurement report.

[0155] In some example embodiments, the method 600A further comprises: receiving, from the second apparatus, configuration information for corresponding a trigger state of one or more trigger states to an RS resource set in the RS resources configured for the beam prediction.

[0156] In some example embodiments, the one or more trigger states are defined for the performance monitoring of the beam prediction, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information aperiodic trigger states, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information semi persistent on physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH, trigger states.

[0157] In some example embodiments, the method 600A further comprises: in accordance with a determination that a set of ground truth samples for the performance monitoring reach a threshold sample number, transmitting to the second apparatus, a monitoring report about the set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

[0158] In some example embodiments, the method 600A further comprises: receiving, from the second apparatus, deactivation information to deactivate the at least one trigger state; and in response to the deactivation information, transmitting to the second apparatus, a monitoring report based on a set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

[0159] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus is or is comprised in a terminal device, and the second apparatus is or is comprised in a network device.

[0160] FIG. 6B shows a flowchart of an example method 600B implemented at the second apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the method 600B will be described from the perspective of the second apparatus 120 in FIG. 1.

[0161] At block 650, the second apparatus 120 determines at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource from RS resources configured to a first apparatus for beam prediction.

[0162] At block 660, the second apparatus 120 determines at least one trigger state for performancemonitoring of the beam prediction based on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

[0163] At block 670, the second apparatus 120 transmits, to the first apparatus, activation information to activate the at least one trigger state.

[0164] At block 680, the second apparatus 120 transmits, to the first apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource to perform the performance monitoring of the beam prediction.

[0165] I n some example embodiments, the method 600B further comprises: determining at least one RS resource set comprising the at least one monitoring RS resource; and determining at least one trigger state corresponding to the at least one RS resource set.

[0166] In some example embodiments, the at least one monitoring RS resource comprises a combination of a plurality of RS resource sets, and the activation information indicates to activate a plurality of trigger states corresponding to the plurality of RS resource sets respectively.

[0167] In some example embodiments, the activation information comprises a plurality of activation messages, and an activation message of the plurality of activation messages indicates to activate one of the plurality of trigger states.

[0168] In some example embodiments, the method 600B further comprises: determining a bitmask indicating presence or absence of RS resources within an RS resource set based on a relation between the at least one monitoring RS resources and the at least on RS resource set; and transmitting, to the first apparatus, at least one of the bitmask or an identifier of the bitmask.

[0169] In some example embodiments, the method 600B further comprises: transmitting, to the first apparatus, information for determining the bitmask from the transmitted identifier.

[0170] In some example embodiments, the method 600B further comprises: receiving, from the first apparatus, at least one of an inference report for the beam prediction or a measurement report for beam measurement; and determining the at least one monitoring RS resource wherein based on the at least one of the inference report or the measurement report.

[0171] In some example embodiments, the method 600B further comprises: determining at least one beam from neighbor beams of the predicted beam; and determining the at least one monitoring RS resource based on an RS resource corresponding to the at least one beam.

[0172] In some example embodiments, the method 600B further comprises: determining the at least on monitoring RS resource based on RS resources corresponding to one or more of the at least one beam predicted by the first apparatus.

[0173] In some example embodiments, the method 600B further comprises: determining the at least on monitoring RS resource based on RS resources associated with the at least one SSB beam.

[0174] In some example embodiments, the method 600B further comprises: transmitting, to the first apparatus, configuration information for corresponding a trigger state of one or more trigger states toan RS resource set in the RS resources configured for the beam prediction.

[0175] In some example embodiments, the one or more trigger states are defined for the performance monitoring of the beam prediction, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information aperiodic trigger states, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information semi persistent on physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH, trigger states.

[0176] In some example embodiments, the method 600B further comprises: receiving, from the first apparatus, a monitoring report about a set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource, and the set of ground truth samples reach a threshold sample number.

[0177] In some example embodiments, the method 600B further comprises: transmitting, to the first apparatus, deactivation information to deactivate the at least one trigger state; and receiving, from the first apparatus, a monitoring report based on a set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

[0178] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus is or is comprised in a terminal device, and the second apparatus is or is comprised in a network device.

[0179] In some example embodiments, a first apparatus capable of performing any of the method 600A (for example, the first apparatus 110 in FIG. 1) may comprise means for performing the respective operations of the method 600A. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module. The first apparatus may be implemented as or included in the first apparatus 110 in FIG. 1 .

[0180] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises means for receiving, from a second apparatus, activation information to activate at least one trigger state for performance monitoring of beam prediction; means for determining, based on the at least one trigger state, at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource from RS resources configured for the beam prediction; means for receiving, from the second apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource; and means for performing the performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the received reference signal.

[0181] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for determining, from the RS resources configured for the beam prediction, at least one RS resource set corresponding to the at least one trigger state respectively; and means for determining the at least one monitoring RS resource based on the at least one RS resource set.

[0182] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for determining the at least one monitoring RS resource by combining a plurality of RS resource sets corresponding to the plurality of trigger states respectively.

[0183] In some example embodiments, the activation information comprises a plurality of activation messages, and an activation message of the plurality of activation messages indicates to activate one of the plurality of trigger states.

[0184] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from the second apparatus, at least one of a bitmask or an identifier of the bitmask, the bitmask indicating presence or absence of RS resources within an RS resource set, and wherein the at least one monitoring RS resource is determined from the at least one RS resource set based on the bitmask.

[0185] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from the second apparatus, information for determining the bitmask from the received identifier.

[0186] I n some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for transmitting, to the second apparatus, at least one of an inference report for the beam prediction or a measurement report for beam measurement, wherein the at least one trigger state is determined based on the at least one of the inference report or the measurement report.

[0187] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from the second apparatus, configuration information for corresponding a trigger state of one or more trigger states to an RS resource set in the RS resources configured for the beam prediction.

[0188] In some example embodiments, the one or more trigger states are defined for the performance monitoring of the beam prediction, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information aperiodic trigger states, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information semi persistent on physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH, trigger states.

[0189] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for in accordance with a determination that a set of ground truth samples for the performance monitoring reach a threshold sample number, transmitting to the second apparatus, a monitoring report about the set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

[0190] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from the second apparatus, deactivation information to deactivate the at least one trigger state; and means for in response to the deactivation information, transmitting to the second apparatus, a monitoring report based on a set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

[0191] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus is or is comprised in a terminal device, and the second apparatus is or is comprised in a network device.

[0192] In some example embodiments, a second apparatus capable of performing any of the method 600B (for example, the second apparatus 120 in FIG. 1) may comprise means for performing therespective operations of the method 600B. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module. The second apparatus may be implemented as or included in the second apparatus 120 in FIG. 1.

[0193] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus comprises means for determining at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource from RS resources configured to a first apparatus for beam prediction; means for determining at least one trigger state for performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the at least one monitoring RS resource; means for transmitting, to the first apparatus, activation information to activate the at least one trigger state; and means for transmitting, to the first apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource to perform the performance monitoring of the beam prediction.

[0194] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for determining at least one RS resource set comprising the at least one monitoring RS resource; and means for determining at least one trigger state corresponding to the at least one RS resource set.

[0195] In some example embodiments, the at least one monitoring RS resource comprises a combination of a plurality of RS resource sets, and the activation information indicates to activate a plurality of trigger states corresponding to the plurality of RS resource sets respectively.

[0196] In some example embodiments, the activation information comprises a plurality of activation messages, and an activation message of the plurality of activation messages indicates to activate one of the plurality of trigger states.

[0197] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for determining a bitmask indicating presence or absence of RS resources within an RS resource set based on a relation between the at least one monitoring RS resources and the at least on RS resource set; and means for transmitting, to the first apparatus, at least one of the bitmask or an identifier of the bitmask.

[0198] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for transmitting, to the first apparatus, information for determining the bitmask from the transmitted identifier.

[0199] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from the first apparatus, at least one of an inference report for the beam prediction or a measurement report for beam measurement; and means for determining the at least one monitoring RS resource wherein based on the at least one of the inference report or the measurement report.

[0200] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for determining at least one beam from neighbor beams of the predicted beam; and means for determining the at least one monitoring RS resource based on an RS resource corresponding to the at least one beam.

[0201] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for determining the at least on monitoring RS resource based on RS resources corresponding to one or more of the at least one beam predicted by the first apparatus.

[0202] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for determining the at least on monitoring RS resource based on RS resources associated with the at least one SSB beam.

[0203] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for transmitting, to the first apparatus, configuration information for corresponding a trigger state of one or more trigger states to an RS resource set in the RS resources configured for the beam prediction.

[0204] In some example embodiments, the one or more trigger states are defined for the performance monitoring of the beam prediction, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information aperiodic trigger states, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information semi persistent on physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH, trigger states.

[0205] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from the first apparatus, a monitoring report about a set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource, and the set of ground truth samples reach a threshold sample number.

[0206] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for transmitting, to the first apparatus, deactivation information to deactivate the at least one trigger state; and means for receiving, from the first apparatus, a monitoring report based on a set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

[0207] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus is or is comprised in a terminal device, and the second apparatus is or is comprised in a network device.

[0208] FIG. 7A shows a flowchart of an example method 700A implemented at the first apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the method 700A will be described from the perspective of the first apparatus 110 in FIG. 1.

[0209] At block 710, the first apparatus 110 transmits, to a second apparatus, an inference report for beam prediction.

[0210] At block 720, the first apparatus 110 receives, from the second apparatus, activation information to activate a trigger state for performance monitoring of the beam prediction.

[0211] At block 730, in accordance with a determination that the activated trigger state has a predefined identifier, the first apparatus 110 determines at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource based on at least one of the inference report or a predetermined RS resource setcorresponding to the activated trigger state.

[0212] At block 740, the first apparatus 110 receives, from the second apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

[0213] At block 750, the first apparatus 110 performs the performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the received reference signal.

[0214] In some example embodiments, the method 700A further comprises: determining the at least one monitoring RS resource based on RS resources corresponding to the at least one predicted beam.

[0215] In some example embodiments, the method 700A further comprises: in response to that the beam prediction indicates an update to the at least one predicted beam, updating the at least one monitoring RS resource based on the update to the at least one predicted beam; and transmitting, to the second apparatus, an updated inference report to indicate the update to the at least one predicted beam.

[0216] In some example embodiments, the method 700A further comprises: receiving, from the second apparatus, the reference signal corresponding to the at least one predicted beam by at least one of: using RS resources allocated to the predetermined RS resource set, or using RS resources corresponding to the at least one predicted beam in place of the RS resources allocated to the predetermined RS resource set.

[0217] In some example embodiments, the method 700A further comprises: determining parameters for receiving the reference signal based on at least one of: configuration information associated with the activated trigger state, or RS resources corresponding to the at least one predicted beam.

[0218] In some example embodiments, the method 700A further comprises: receiving, from the second apparatus, configuration information for corresponding a trigger state of one or more trigger states to an RS resource set in the RS resources configured for the beam prediction.

[0219] In some example embodiments, the one or more trigger states are defined for the performance monitoring of the beam prediction, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information aperiodic trigger states, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information semi persistent on physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH, trigger states.

[0220] In some example embodiments, the method 700A further comprises: in accordance with a determination that a set of ground truth samples for the performance monitoring reach a threshold sample number, transmitting to the second apparatus, a monitoring report about the set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

[0221] In some example embodiments, the method 700A further comprises: receiving, from the second apparatus, deactivation information to deactivate the at least one trigger state; and in responseto the deactivation information, transmitting to the second apparatus, a monitoring report based on a set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

[0222] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus is or is comprised in a terminal device, and the second apparatus is or is comprised in a network device.

[0223] FIG. 7B shows a flowchart of an example method 700B implemented at the second apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the method 700B will be described from the perspective of the second apparatus 120 in FIG. 1.

[0224] At block 760, the second apparatus 120 receives, from a first apparatus, an inference report for beam prediction.

[0225] At block 770, the second apparatus 120 transmits, to the first apparatus, activation information to activate a trigger state with a predefined identifier for performance monitoring of the beam prediction.

[0226] At block 780, the second apparatus 120 determines at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource based on at least one of the inference report or a predetermined RS resource set corresponding to the activated trigger state.

[0227] At block 790, the second apparatus 120 transmits, to the first apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource to perform the performance monitoring of the beam prediction.

[0228] In some example embodiments, the method 700B further comprises: determining the at least one monitoring RS resource based on RS resources corresponding to the at least one predicted beam.

[0229] In some example embodiments, the method 700B further comprises: receiving, from the first apparatus, an updated inference report indicating an update to the at least one predicted beam; and updating the at least one monitoring RS resource based on the update to the at least one predicted beam.

[0230] In some example embodiments, the method 700B further comprises: transmitting, to the first apparatus, the reference signal corresponding to the at least one predicted beam by at least one of: using RS resources allocated to the predetermined RS resource set, or assigning RS resources corresponding to the at least one predicted beam to the predetermined RS resource set.

[0231] In some example embodiments, the method 700B further comprises: determining parameters for transmitting the reference signal based on at least one of: configuration information associated with the activated trigger state, or RS resources corresponding to the at least one predicted beam.

[0232] In some example embodiments, the method 700B further comprises: transmitting, to the first apparatus, configuration information for corresponding a trigger state of one or more trigger states toan RS resource set in the RS resources configured for the beam prediction.

[0233] In some example embodiments, the one or more trigger states are defined for the performance monitoring of the beam prediction, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information aperiodic trigger states, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information semi persistent on physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH, trigger states.

[0234] In some example embodiments, the method 700B further comprises: receiving, from the first apparatus, a monitoring report about a set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource, and the set of ground truth samples reach a threshold sample number.

[0235] In some example embodiments, the method 700B further comprises: transmitting, to the first apparatus, deactivation information to deactivate the at least one trigger state; and receiving, from the first apparatus, a monitoring report based on a set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

[0236] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus is or is comprised in a terminal device, and the second apparatus is or is comprised in a network device.

[0237] In some example embodiments, a first apparatus capable of performing any of the method 700A (for example, the first apparatus 110 in FIG. 1) may comprise means for performing the respective operations of the method 700A. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module. The first apparatus may be implemented as or included in the first apparatus 110 in FIG. 1 .

[0238] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises means for transmitting, to a second apparatus, an inference report for beam prediction; means for receiving, from the second apparatus, activation information to activate a trigger state for performance monitoring of the beam prediction; means for in accordance with a determination that the activated trigger state has a predefined identifier, determining at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource based on at least one of the inference report or a predetermined RS resource set corresponding to the activated trigger state; means for receiving, from the second apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource; and means for performing the performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the received reference signal.

[0239] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for determining the at least one monitoring RS resource based on RS resources corresponding to the at least one predicted beam.

[0240] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: in response to that the beam prediction indicates an update to the at least one predicted beam, means for updating the atleast one monitoring RS resource based on the update to the at least one predicted beam; and means for transmitting, to the second apparatus, an updated inference report to indicate the update to the at least one predicted beam.

[0241] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from the second apparatus, the reference signal corresponding to the at least one predicted beam by at least one of: means for using RS resources allocated to the predetermined RS resource set, or means for using RS resources corresponding to the at least one predicted beam in place of the RS resources allocated to the predetermined RS resource set.

[0242] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for determining parameters for receiving the reference signal based on at least one of: configuration information associated with the activated trigger state, or RS resources corresponding to the at least one predicted beam.

[0243] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from the second apparatus, configuration information for corresponding a trigger state of one or more trigger states to an RS resource set in the RS resources configured for the beam prediction.

[0244] In some example embodiments, the one or more trigger states are defined for the performance monitoring of the beam prediction, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information aperiodic trigger states, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information semi persistent on physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH, trigger states.

[0245] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for in accordance with a determination that a set of ground truth samples for the performance monitoring reach a threshold sample number, transmitting to the second apparatus, a monitoring report about the set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

[0246] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from the second apparatus, deactivation information to deactivate the at least one trigger state; and means for in response to the deactivation information, transmitting to the second apparatus, a monitoring report based on a set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

[0247] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus is or is comprised in a terminal device, and the second apparatus is or is comprised in a network device.

[0248] In some example embodiments, a second apparatus capable of performing any of the method 700B (for example, the second apparatus 120 in FIG. 1) may comprise means for performing the respective operations of the method 700B. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. Forexample, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module. The second apparatus may be implemented as or included in the second apparatus 120 in FIG. 1.

[0249] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus comprises means for receiving, from a first apparatus, an inference report for beam prediction; means for transmitting, to the first apparatus, activation information to activate a trigger state with a predefined identifier for performance monitoring of the beam prediction; means for determining at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource based on at least one of the inference report or a predetermined RS resource set corresponding to the activated trigger state; and means for transmitting, to the first apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource to perform the performance monitoring of the beam prediction.

[0250] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for determining the at least one monitoring RS resource based on RS resources corresponding to the at least one predicted beam.

[0251] I n some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from the first apparatus, an updated inference report indicating an update to the at least one predicted beam; and means for updating the at least one monitoring RS resource based on the update to the at least one predicted beam.

[0252] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for transmitting, to the first apparatus, the reference signal corresponding to the at least one predicted beam by at least one of: means for using RS resources allocated to the predetermined RS resource set, or means for assigning RS resources corresponding to the at least one predicted beam to the predetermined RS resource set.

[0253] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for determining parameters for transmitting the reference signal based on at least one of: configuration information associated with the activated trigger state, or RS resources corresponding to the at least one predicted beam.

[0254] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for transmitting, to the first apparatus, configuration information for corresponding a trigger state of one or more trigger states to an RS resource set in the RS resources configured for the beam prediction.

[0255] In some example embodiments, the one or more trigger states are defined for the performance monitoring of the beam prediction, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information aperiodic trigger states, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information semi persistent on physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH, trigger states.

[0256] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from the first apparatus, a monitoring report about a set of ground truth samples, wherein a groundtruth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource, and the set of ground truth samples reach a threshold sample number.

[0257] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for transmitting, to the first apparatus, deactivation information to deactivate the at least one trigger state; and means for receiving, from the first apparatus, a monitoring report based on a set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

[0258] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus is or is comprised in a terminal device, and the second apparatus is or is comprised in a network device.

[0259] FIG. 8 is a simplified block diagram of a device 800 that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure. The device 800 may be provided to implement a communication device, for example, the first apparatus 110 or the second apparatus 120 as shown in FIG. 1. As shown, the device 800 includes one or more processors 810, one or more memories 820 coupled to the processor 810, and one or more communication modules 840 coupled to the processor 810.

[0260] The communication module 840 is for bidirectional communications. The communication module 840 has one or more communication interfaces to facilitate communication with one or more other modules or devices. The communication interfaces may represent any interface that is necessary for communication with other network elements. In some example embodiments, the communication module 840 may include at least one antenna.

[0261] The processor 810 may be of any type suitable to the local technical network and may include one or more of the following: general purpose computers, special purpose computers, microprocessors, digital signal processors (DSPs) and processors based on multicore processor architecture, as non-limiting examples. The device 800 may have multiple processors, such as an application specific integrated circuit chip that is slaved in time to a clock which synchronizes the main processor.

[0262] The memory 820 may include one or more non-volatile memories and one or more volatile memories. Examples of the non-volatile memories include, but are not limited to, a Read Only Memory (ROM) 824, an electrically programmable read only memory (EPROM), a flash memory, a hard disk, a compact disc (CD), a digital video disk (DVD), an optical disk, a laser disk, and other magnetic storage and / or optical storage. Examples of the volatile memories include, but are not limited to, a random-access memory (RAM) 822 and other volatile memories that will not last in the power-down duration.

[0263] A computer program 830 includes computer executable instructions that are executed by the associated processor 810. The instructions of the program 830 may include instructions for performingoperations / acts of some example embodiments of the present disclosure. The program 830 may be stored in the memory, e.g., the ROM 824. The processor 810 may perform any suitable actions and processing by loading the program 830 into the RAM 822.

[0264] The example embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented by means of the program 830 so that the device 800 may perform any process of the disclosure as discussed with reference to FIG. 2 to FIG. 7B. The example embodiments of the present disclosure may also be implemented by hardware or by a combination of software and hardware.

[0265] In some example embodiments, the program 830 may be tangibly contained in a computer readable medium which may be included in the device 800 (such as in the memory 820) or other storage devices that are accessible by the device 800. The device 800 may load the program 830 from the computer readable medium to the RAM 822 for execution. In some example embodiments, the computer readable medium may include any types of non-transitory storage medium, such as ROM, EPROM, a flash memory, a hard disk, CD, DVD, and the like. The term “non-transitory,” as used herein, is a limitation of the medium itself (i.e. , tangible, not a signal) as opposed to a limitation on data storage persistency (e.g., RAM vs. ROM).

[0266] FIG. 9 shows an example of the computer readable medium 910 which may be in form of CD, DVD or other optical storage disk. The computer readable medium 910 has the program 830 stored thereon.

[0267] Generally, various embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented in hardware or special purpose circuits, software, logic or any combination thereof. Some aspects may be implemented in hardware, and other aspects may be implemented in firmware or software which may be executed by a controller, microprocessor or other computing device. Although various aspects of embodiments of the present disclosure are illustrated and described as block diagrams, flowcharts, or using some other pictorial representations, it is to be understood that the block, apparatus, system, technique or method described herein may be implemented in, as non-limiting examples, hardware, software, firmware, special purpose circuits or logic, general purpose hardware or controller or other computing devices, or some combination thereof.

[0268] Some example embodiments of the present disclosure also provide at least one computer program product tangibly stored on a computer readable medium, such as a non-transitory computer readable medium. The computer program product includes computer-executable instructions, such as those included in program modules, being executed in a device on a target physical or virtual processor, to carry out any of the methods as described above. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, libraries, objects, classes, components, data structures, or the like that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The functionality of the program modules may be combined or split between program modules as desired in various embodiments. Machine-executable instructions for program modules may be executed within a local or distributed device. In a distributed device, program modules may be located in both local and remote storage media.

[0269] Program code for carrying out methods of the present disclosure may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages. The program code may be provided to a processor or controller of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus, such that the program code, when executed by the processor or controller, cause the functions / operations specified in the flowcharts and / or block diagrams to be implemented. The program code may execute entirely on a machine, partly on the machine, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the machine and partly on a remote machine or entirely on the remote machine or server.

[0270] In the context of the present disclosure, the computer program code or related data may be carried by any suitable carrier to enable the device, apparatus or processor to perform various processes and operations as described above. Examples of the carrier include a signal, computer readable medium, and the like.

[0271] The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signal medium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer readable medium may include but not limited to an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. More specific examples of the computer readable storage medium would include an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

[0272] Further, although operations are depicted in a particular order, this should not be understood as requiring that such operations be performed in the particular order shown or in sequential order, or that all illustrated operations be performed, to achieve desirable results. In certain circumstances, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous. Likewise, although several specific implementation details are contained in the above discussions, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the present disclosure, but rather as descriptions of features that may be specific to particular embodiments. Unless explicitly stated, certain features that are described in the context of separate embodiments may also be implemented in combination in a single embodiment. Conversely, unless explicitly stated, various features that are described in the context of a single embodiment may also be implemented in a plurality of embodiments separately or in any suitable subcombination.

[0273] Although the present disclosure has been described in languages specific to structuralfeatures and / or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the present disclosure defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.

Claims

CLAIMS:1 . A first apparatus comprising: at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first apparatus at least to: receive, from a second apparatus, activation information to activate at least one trigger state for performance monitoring of beam prediction; determine, based on the at least one trigger state, at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource from RS resources configured for the beam prediction; receive, from the second apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource; and perform the performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the received reference signal.

2. The first apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first apparatus is caused to: determine, from the RS resources configured for the beam prediction, at least one RS resource set corresponding to the at least one trigger state respectively; and determine the at least one monitoring RS resource based on the at least one RS resource set.

3. The first apparatus of claim 2, wherein the activation information indicates to activate a plurality of trigger states, and the first apparatus is caused to: determine the at least one monitoring RS resource by combining a plurality of RS resource sets corresponding to the plurality of trigger states respectively.

4. The first apparatus of claim 3, wherein the activation information comprises a plurality of activation messages, and an activation message of the plurality of activation messages indicates to activate one of the plurality of trigger states.

5. The first apparatus of claim 2, wherein the first apparatus is further caused to: receive, from the second apparatus, at least one of a bitmask or an identifier of the bitmask, the bitmask indicating presence or absence of RS resources within an RS resource set, and wherein the at least one monitoring RS resource is determined from the at least one RS resource set based on the bitmask.

6. The first apparatus of claim 5, wherein the identifier of the bitmask is received, and the first apparatus is further caused to: receive, from the second apparatus, information for determining the bitmask from the received identifier.

7. The first apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first apparatus is further caused to: transmit, to the second apparatus, at least one of an inference report for the beam prediction or a measurement report for beam measurement, wherein the at least one trigger state is determined based on the at least one of the inference report or the measurement report.

8. The first apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first apparatus is further caused to: receive, from the second apparatus, configuration information for corresponding a trigger state of one or more trigger states to an RS resource set in the RS resources configured for the beam prediction.

9. The first apparatus of claim 8, wherein the one or more trigger states are defined for the performance monitoring of the beam prediction, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information aperiodic trigger states, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information semi persistent on physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH, trigger states.

10. The first apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first apparatus is indicated with aperiodic report configuration, and the first apparatus is further caused to: in accordance with a determination that a set of ground truth samples for the performance monitoring reach a threshold sample number, transmit, to the second apparatus, a monitoring report about the set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource.11 . The first apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first apparatus is indicated with semi-persistent report configuration, and the first apparatus is further caused to: receive, from the second apparatus, deactivation information to deactivate the at least one trigger state; and in response to the deactivation information, transmit, to the second apparatus, a monitoring report based on a set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performingmeasurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

12. The first apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first apparatus is or is comprised in a terminal device, and the second apparatus is or is comprised in a network device.

13. A second apparatus comprising: at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the second apparatus at least to: determine at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource from RS resources configured to a first apparatus for beam prediction; determine at least one trigger state for performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the at least one monitoring RS resource; transmit, to the first apparatus, activation information to activate the at least one trigger state; and transmit, to the first apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource to perform the performance monitoring of the beam prediction.

14. The second apparatus of claim 13, wherein the second apparatus is caused to: determine at least one RS resource set comprising the at least one monitoring RS resource; and determine at least one trigger state corresponding to the at least one RS resource set.

15. The second apparatus of claim 14, wherein the at least one monitoring RS resource comprises a combination of a plurality of RS resource sets, and the activation information indicates to activate a plurality of trigger states corresponding to the plurality of RS resource sets respectively.

16. The second apparatus of claim 15, wherein the activation information comprises a plurality of activation messages, and an activation message of the plurality of activation messages indicates to activate one of the plurality of trigger states.

17. The second apparatus of claim 14, wherein the second apparatus is further caused to: determine a bitmask indicating presence or absence of RS resources within an RS resource set based on a relation between the at least one monitoring RS resources and the at least on RS resource set; and transmit, to the first apparatus, at least one of the bitmask or an identifier of the bitmask.

18. The second apparatus of claim 17, wherein the identifier of the bitmask is transmitted, and the second apparatus is further caused to: transmit, to the first apparatus, information for determining the bitmask from the transmitted identifier.

19. The second apparatus of claim 13, wherein the second apparatus is caused to: receive, from the first apparatus, at least one of an inference report for the beam prediction or a measurement report for beam measurement; and determine the at least one monitoring RS resource wherein based on the at least one of the inference report or the measurement report.

20. The second apparatus of claim 19, wherein the inference report indicates a beam predicted by the first apparatus, and the second apparatus is caused to: determine at least one beam from neighbor beams of the predicted beam; and determine the at least one monitoring RS resource based on an RS resource corresponding to the at least one beam.21 . The second apparatus of claim 19, wherein the inference report indicates at least one beam predicted by the first apparatus, and the second apparatus is caused to: determine the at least on monitoring RS resource based on RS resources corresponding to one or more of the at least one beam predicted by the first apparatus.

22. The second apparatus of claim 19, wherein the at least one of the inference report or the measurement report indicates at least one synchronization signal block, SSB, beam, and the second apparatus is caused to: determine the at least on monitoring RS resource based on RS resources associated with the at least one SSB beam.

23. The second apparatus of claim 13, wherein the second apparatus is further caused to: transmit, to the first apparatus, configuration information for corresponding a trigger state of one or more trigger states to an RS resource set in the RS resources configured for the beam prediction.

24. The second apparatus of claim 23, wherein the one or more trigger states are defined for the performance monitoring of the beam prediction, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information aperiodictrigger states, or the one or more trigger states are reused from one or more of channel state information semi persistent on physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH, trigger states.

25. The second apparatus of claim 13, wherein the first apparatus is indicated with aperiodic report configuration, and the second apparatus is further caused to: receive, from the first apparatus, a monitoring report about a set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource, and the set of ground truth samples reach a threshold sample number.

26. The second apparatus of claim 13, wherein the first apparatus is indicated with semi-persistent report configuration, and the second apparatus is further caused to: transmit, to the first apparatus, deactivation information to deactivate the at least one trigger state; and receive, from the first apparatus, a monitoring report based on a set of ground truth samples, wherein a ground truth sample is derived by performing measurement on the at least one monitoring RS resource.

27. The second apparatus of claim 13, wherein the first apparatus is or is comprised in a terminal device, and the second apparatus is or is comprised in a network device.

28. A method comprising: receiving, from a second apparatus, activation information to activate at least one trigger state for performance monitoring of beam prediction. determining, based on the at least one trigger state, at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource from RS resources configured for the beam prediction. receiving, from the second apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource. performing the performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the received reference signal.

29. A method comprising: determining at least one monitoring reference signal, RS, resource from RS resourcesconfigured to a first apparatus for beam prediction. determining at least one trigger state for performance monitoring of the beam prediction based on the at least one monitoring RS resource. transmitting, to the first apparatus, activation information to activate the at least one trigger state. transmitting, to the first apparatus, a reference signal on the at least one monitoring RS resource to perform the performance monitoring of the beam prediction.

30. A computer readable medium comprising instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus at least to perform the method of claim 28 or the method of claim 29.

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