Iterative steps for inventory using short identifier

Abstract

Example embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to iterative steps for inventory using short identifier A method comprises determining first information that is related to a first paging response for a first paging request message that is received from a second apparatus; storing the first information; receiving, from the second apparatus, a second paging request message that comprises second information related to at least one first apparatus of which response to the first paging request message is received; comparing the first information with the second information in the second paging request message; and determining a result of whether to respond to the second paging request message based on the comparison between the first information and the second information.

Description

ITERATIVE STEPS FOR INVENTORY USING SHORT IDENTIFIERCROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

[0001] This application claims priority from, and the benefit of, India Provisional Application No. 202441075362, filed October 4, 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 iterative steps for inventory using short identifier (ID).BACKGROUND

[0003] Internet of Things, or loT, is a network of physical devices. These devices can transfer data to one another without human intervention. The automation and digitalization of various industries open numbers of new markets requiring new loT technologies of supporting battery-less devices with no energy storage capability or devices with energy storage that do not need to be replaced or recharged manually. It may consider devices being either battery-less or with limited energy storage capability (i.e., using a capacitor) and the energy is provided through the harvesting of radio waves, light, motion, heat, or any other power source that could be seen suitable. Considering the limited size and complexity required by practical applications for battery-less devices with no energy storage capability or devices with limited energy storage that do not need to be replaced or recharged manually, the output power of energy harvester is typically from 1 W to a few hundreds of pW. Existing cellular devices may not work well with energy harvesting due to their peak power consumption of higher than 10mW.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 to: determine first information that is related to a first paging response for a first paging request message that is received from a second apparatus; store the first information; receive, from the second apparatus, a second paging request message that comprises second information related to at least one first apparatus of which response to the first paging request message is received; compare the first information with the second information in the second paging request message; and determine a result of whether to respond to the second paging request message based on the comparison between the first information and the second information.

[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 to: receive, from at least one first apparatuses, at least one first paging response for a first paging request message; determine second information based on the at least one first paging response; and transmit, to one or more first apparatuses, a second paging request message that comprises the second information related to the at least one first apparatus of which response to the first paging request message is received.

[0006] In a third aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: determining first information that is related to a first paging response for a first paging request message that is received from a second apparatus; storing the first information; receiving, from the second apparatus, a second paging request message that comprises second information related to at least one first apparatus of which response to the first paging request message is received; comparing the first information with the second information in the second paging request message; and determining a result of whether to respond to the second paging request message based on the comparison between the first information and the second information.

[0007] In a fourth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: receiving, from at least one first apparatuses, at least one first paging response for a first paging request message; determining second information based on the at least one first paging response; and transmitting, to one or more first apparatuses, a second paging request message that comprises the second information related to the at least one first apparatus of which response to the first paging request message is received.

[0008] In a fifth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a first apparatus. The first apparatus comprises means for determining first information that is related to a first paging response for a first paging request message that is received from a second apparatus; means for storing the first information; means for receiving, from the second apparatus, a second paging request message that comprises second information related to at least one first apparatus of which response to the first paging request message is received; means for comparing the first information with the second information in the second paging request message; and means for determining a result of whether to respond to the second paging request message based on the comparison between the first information and the second information.

[0009] In a sixth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a second apparatus. The second apparatus comprises means for receiving, from at least one first apparatuses, at least one first paging response for a first paging request message; means for determining second information based on the at least one first paging response; and means for transmitting, to one or more first apparatuses, a second paging request message that comprises the second information related to the at least onefirst apparatus of which response to the first paging request message is received.

[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] 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

[0013] Some example embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, where:

[0014] FIG. 1 illustrates an example communication environment in which example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented;

[0015] FIG. 2 illustrates a signaling flow of a transmission between a reader and a device in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0016] FIG. 3 illustrates an example signaling flow of a transmission between a reader and a device in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0017] FIG. 4 illustrates another example signaling flow of a transmission between a reader and a device in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0018] FIG. 5 illustrates another example signaling flow of a transmission between a reader and a device in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0019] FIG. 6 illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at a first apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0020] FIG. 7 illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at a second apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0021] FIG. 8 illustrates a simplified block diagram of a device that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure; and

[0022] FIG. 9 illustrates a block diagram of an example computer readable medium in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0023] Throughout the drawings, the same or similar reference numerals represent the same or similar element.DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0024] 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.

[0025] 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.

[0026] 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 affect such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodiments whether or not explicitly described.

[0027] 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.

[0028] 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.

[0029] 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.

[0030] 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.

[0031] 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.

[0032] This definition of circuitry applies to all uses of this term in this application, including in any claims. 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.

[0033] 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 thepresent disclosure to only the aforementioned system.

[0034] 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.

[0035] 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 not limited 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.

[0036] 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 / orcode 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.

[0037] As used herein, the term “ambient loT device” used herein is a 3GPP loT device which is much smaller and cheaper compared to previous generations of loT. The ultimate ambient loT energy source is that from radio waves. Both Ambient loT and Ambient computing rely upon energy harvesting as one of the key mechanisms for powering and enabling the technology. Energy harvesting, as it applies to Ambient loT and Ambient Computing, is the harnessing of the power in ambient radio waves to power tiny computers. Ambient loT device may have a new radio / air interface to a reader / node. The new radio interface may be frame based or non-frame based. Deploying ambient loT service on existing system could reduce the operation cost and quickly commercialize the new service.

[0038] As used herein, the term “random access” refers to the process in wireless communication systems where a device initiates communication transmitting a request over a shared channel. In cellular systems like LTE and 5G, random access is used for initial connection setup, handovers, or re-establishing communication after signal loss. It typically involves a random access preamble followed by a network response to coordinate further communication. The term “access occasion” used herein may refer to a time domain and / or frequency domain resource that is used to access a channel / link.

[0039] In some implementations, a terminal based on energy harvesting operates in an active or passive mode. The terminal itself uses energy harvested from wireless radio waves or any other form of energy that may be harvested in its deployment scenario and is expected to operate with ultra-low power in the range from tens of microwatts to hundreds of microwatts. For example, if energy is harvested from wireless radio waves, the output power of energy harvester would be from several micro-watt to tens of micro-watt. If solar panel is used for energy harvesting from solar or light, the output power may be less than 1 milli-watt due to the small size of the solar panel. An energy harvesting device may harvest energy and then use an active circuit to transmit like a conventional transmitter, or simply amplify the backscattered signal. On the other side, some energy harvesting devices, called passive devices or tags, do not possess active transmission circuitry, and use backscattering to transmit data.

[0040] In some implementations, radio frequency identification (RFID) are used with backscattering technology. The goal of ambient loT study is to enhance coverage for backscattering RFID solutions as well as introducing new solutions with advanced features like harvesting energy from the dedicated source or ambient energy source and spending energy efficiently for loT-type of data transmissions. Some solutions define the relevant use cases, traffic scenarios, key performance indicators (KPIs).The considered devices cover both battery-less type of device or device with limited energy storage capability and the energy may be provided via radio wave harvesting, light, motion, or the like.

[0041] In some other implementations, ambient loTs are used in various vertical industries including logistics, manufacture, transportation, energy industry, and so on. With the help of enabling passive devices or ambient loT devices, in both public and private networks may benefit the whole ecosystem. Some areas of considerations for the ambient loT studies include the followings: operation under extreme environmental conditions, for example, high pressure, extremely high temperature, extremely low temperature, humid environment and so on, vibration; if ultra-low complexity cost, very small terminal size or form factor, such as thickness of mm, maintenance-free, longer life cycle, and so on are strongly required; or other scenarios where a terminal driven by a battery is not applicable. Therefore, support of ambient loTs using either battery-less terminal or terminal with limited energy storage capability, for example, using a capacitor, can become a new requirement.

[0042] For the ambient loT downlink and uplink, the following functionalities need study: frame structure, synchronization and timing, random access; numerologies, bandwidths, and multiple access; waveforms and modulations; channel coding; downlink channel or signal aspects; uplink channel or signal aspects; scheduling and timing relationships. Moreover, necessary study characteristics of carrier-wave waveform for a carrier wave is provided externally to the ambient loT device, including for interference handling at ambient loT uplink receiver, and at new radio base station. Furthermore, studying and deciding which functions are needed for an ambient loT compact protocol stack and lightweight signaling procedure enables DO-DTT and DT data transmission, and the following functions need study: paging, random access, data transmission including necessary radio resource control aspects, respecting the limitation in the general scope, and interactions with upper layers.

[0043] In some solutions, two approaches with which the device can access the spectrum are provided. For each of these types, it is common that network triggered and not device initiated are needed. The network trigger will be performed by an initial trigger message, that is, A-loT paging currently. The transmitter of the message is called “reader” and may be either a gNB or a UE in coverage. After reading an A-loT paging, the device may access the network based on indication within the paging to use contention-free access (CFA), where the network provides a fixed set of resources in which the device may reply, or contention-based random access (CBRA), where the devices selects a random occasion of a set of occasions provided by the reader. This procedure may cause contention between a plurality of A-loT devices trying to use the same access occasion, therefore, collisions within message transmission and potential loss of data may occur. CBRA supports two types of access. The first type of access includes 3 steps: device selecting a random occurrence of the x access occasions defined, where it transmits a randomly generated identification number (ID) to the reader; reader replying with the random ID of the device allowed access within the occasion,which is considered first step contention resolution; and device with the ID similar to the ID echoed by the reader transmits the upper layer data to the reader. The second type of access includes one step with or without contention resolution: device selecting a random occurrence of the x access occasions defined, where it transmits the data payload. In some cases, the device provides a random ID for contention resolution, if indicated by the reader. In some other cases, the reader replies with the random ID of the device which has successfully transmitted the payload, which is indicated using the random ID.

[0044] When the devices are triggered for random access by a reader, a session ID may be used to keep track if the devices already have accessed network in the current reading session to avoid sending duplicate information in the same reading session. However, the use of session ID is not useful if network attempts to control device access across multiple reading sessions.

[0045] Some solutions solve the problem of collision detection for a plurality of A-loT devices to help devices identify if their access attempt is successful. For each paging occasion, the reader sends the IDs of the devices with successful access attempt in the previous paging occasion and the devices which attempted in the previous access occasion but lost can assume that their access attempt is not successful and become a candidate for retransmission.

[0046] In some implementations, slotted ALOHA for A-loT radio interface, that is, random access within slotted time, is used. More specifically, a single or multiple devices may be requested to provide a specific response to the request. To accommodate the response transmission, devices can select random access occasions from a predetermined set. In this case, supporting multiple paging messages within a single session which enables a reader to trigger multiple or subsequent A-loT paging messages that are associated with the same request from the core network brings the problem that a device may attempt to reply to all of those.

[0047] In the present disclosure, a method of signaling procedure between the ambient loT and the reader is provided. Furthermore, the solution provided by the present disclosure enables the duplicated responses from devices for all types of contention-based access procedures to be avoided. According to example embodiments of the present disclosure, multiple paging transmissions (also known as “initial trigger message”) from the reader ensure that the procedure involving multiple A-loT devices is completed successfully. The A-loT devices include a device group or simply all active devices.

[0048] Principles and implementations of the present disclosure will be described in detail below with reference to the figures.

[0049] FIG. 1 illustrates schematic diagrams of example communication environments in which example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented, respectively. As shown in FIG. 1 , there may be a plurality of communication devices, including a device 110-1 , ..., a device 110-N(collectively referred to as “device(s) 110”), and a device 120. In the example of FIG. 1 , the device 110 may be an ambient loT device / ambient loT tag and the device 120 may be reader. In some embodiments, the device 120 may be a UE or a base station serving a UE. As shown in FIG. 1 , the device 110 (i.e., ambient loT device) directly and bidirectionally communicates with the device 120 (i.e., reader). The communication between the device 110 and the device 120 may include ambient loT data and / or signalling. This first topology 100 may include the possibility that the device 110 transmitting to the device 120 is a different from the device 110 receiving from the device 120. For example, the first topology 100 may be deployed in a scenario where the device 110 (i.e., ambient loT device) and the device 120 may be indoors.

[0050] It is to be understood that the number of devices and their connections shown in FIG. 1 are only for the purpose of illustration without suggesting any limitation. The communication environment may include any suitable number of devices configured to implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure. Although not shown, it would be appreciated that one or more additional devices may be located in the cell, and one or more additional cells may be deployed in the communication environment. It is noted that in the following description, the device 110 may refer to the first device or the device, and the device 120 may refer to the second device or the reader. Alternatively, the device 110 or the device 120 may also refer to another device, which is not limited herein.

[0051] In the following, for the purpose of illustration, some example embodiments are described with the device 110 operating as a UE and the device 120 operating as a base station. 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.

[0052] The communications in the communication environments shown in FIG. 1 may conform to any suitable standards including, but not limited to, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Long Term Evolution (LTE), LTE-Evolution, LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), New Radio (NR), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), GSM EDGE Radio Access Network (GERAN), Machine Type Communication (MTC) and the like. The embodiments of the present disclosure may be performed according to any generation communication protocols either currently known or to be developed in the future. Examples of the communication protocols include, 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) communication protocols, 5.5G, 5G-Advanced networks, or the sixth generation (6G) networks.

[0053] Example embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in detail below with reference to FIG. 2 to FIG. 9, and the following embodiments may be implemented in the environment of FIG. 1.

[0054] Reference is made to FIG. 2, which illustrates a signaling flow 200 of a transmission between a reader and a device in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure. The signaling flow 200 involves the first apparatus 210 and the second apparatus 220. The first apparatus 210 may be an ambient loT device and the second apparatus 220 may be an ambient loT reader. In some example embodiments, the second apparatus 220 may be included in a terminal device or a network device. For example, the first apparatus 210 may be one of the devices 110 (for example, the device 110-1 ) and the second apparatus may be the device 120 in FIG. 1. Although FIG. 2 only shows one first apparatus 210, it is noted that the signaling flow 200 may involve more than one first apparatus.

[0055] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus 220 may receive a request for a group of A-loT devices or all A-loT devices from the core network. In some example embodiments, the second apparatus may assign a paging session ID to be used when subsequently transmitting followup A-loT paging messages associated with the same request.

[0056] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus 220 may transmit (2005) a first paging request message to the first apparatus. In some example embodiments, the first paging request message may include inventory command information and / or access occasions, and these resources may be indicated by such as specific reference to individual time slots or their sets, or the number of subsequently usable time slots or paging occasions. In some other example embodiments, the first paging request message may include the number of paging occasions for the paging session ID and an indication on whether the paging retransmissions are slot-based or identifier-based. In some example embodiments, the first paging request message may include a paging transmission count. The paging transmission count may include the number of the paging transmission. In some example embodiments, the first paging request message may include a parameter for first apparatuses that never triggered paging response for a given paging session ID. In this way, it can achieve cross checking whether the reader (i.e., the second apparatus 220) might have missed to scan some devices. In this case, AloT devices which obtain this paging-session-ID for the first time and never responded may trigger RACH access. Alternatively, the first paging request message may include a subset of first apparatuses to respond for the given paging occasion. For example, the first paging request message may include a mask that indicates only a subset of devices (i.e., the subset of first apparatuses ) to respond for the given paging occasion which can be referred by a paging transmission count. In some example embodiments, the subset of devices may be provided as last few bits of actual device-ID. In this case, the second apparatus 220 may first complete the first paging attempts for all subsets in multiple paging occasions followed by paging retransmissions for each occasions. In this way, it can minimize the collision for random access on the given slot.

[0057] The first apparatus 210 determines (2010) first information that is related to a first paging response for the first paging request message that is received from a second apparatus 220. In someexample embodiments, the first apparatus 210 may generate a random identifier (ID) as a bitstring of length N, where N is an integer. For example, the length N of the bitstring to be generated may be indicated in the first paging request message. Alternatively, the value of N may be predetermined. For example, if the first paging request message indicates the value of N is 10, the first apparatus 110 may generate a 10-bit random ID. In addition, the first apparatus 210 may add the generated random ID in the first paging response message, then the first apparatus 210 may determine the first information to be the generated random ID or a portion of the generated random ID. For example, if the generated random ID is 10-bit long, the first apparatus 210 may use the last or first 8 bits of the generated random ID as the first information. In some other example embodiments, the generated random ID may be last N bits of the current random identifier indicated by the first apparatus 110 responding to the first paging request message. For example, if the current random ID is 16-bit long, the generated random ID may be the last 10 bits of the current random ID. The first apparatus 110 then stores (2015) the first information.

[0058] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus 210 may transmit (2020) a first paging response to the second apparatus 220. The second apparatus 220 receives (2020), from at least one first apparatuses 210, at least one first paging response for the first paging request message. In some example embodiments, the at least one first paging response may include a random identifier (ID) bitstring of length N. In some other example embodiments, the first paging response message further may include at least one of: an identity of the first apparatus; or another generated random ID used for collision based avoidance. For example, as mentioned above, if the current random ID is 16-bit long, the generated random ID may be the last 10 bits of the current random ID. In this case, in some example embodiments, the first paging response may include both the 16-bit current random ID and the 10-bit generated random ID.

[0059] The second apparatus 220 determines (2030) second information based on the at least one first paging response. In some example embodiments, the second apparatus 220 may generate the second information based on at least a portion of the received random ID of the at least one first apparatus. In some example embodiments, after receiving the first paging response messages from the first apparatuses following the first paging message, the second apparatus 220 may decide to transmit another paging message (i.e., a second paging request message) depending on the received device-identifiers.

[0060] The second apparatus 220 transmits (2040) the second paging request message to the first apparatus 210, where the second paging request message includes the second information related to the at least one first apparatus 210 of which response to the first paging request message is received. In some example embodiments, after receiving the first paging response messages from the first apparatuses following the first paging message, the second apparatus 220 may decide to transmitanother paging message (i.e., a second paging request message) depending on the received deviceidentifiers.

[0061] In some example embodiments, the second paging request message may include the second information. The second information may include a disallowed list for responding to the second paging request message. In this case, all first apparatuses associated with the random ID in the disallowed list may not respond to the paging retransmission. In some example embodiments, the second information may include the at least portion of the random ID that is received in the first paging response message. For example, the second information may include the complete random ID. Alternatively, if the received random ID is 10-bit, the second information may include last or first P bits of the received random ID, where P is an integer and smaller than 10. In some other example embodiments, expect the random ID the first apparatus, the second information may also include the paging occasion and the slot number of the first apparatus. In addition, the paging occasion may also refer to the paging attempt number.

[0062] Alternatively, the second paging request may indicate a further length L to be used by the at least one first apparatus 210 for generating a further random ID bitstring of length L, and L is an integer. For example, the value of L may be 8. In addition, the further random ID bitstring of length L generated may be included in the second paging response message. In some example embodiments, the further length L may be different than the length N. For example, the length L may be shorter than the length N.

[0063] In some example embodiments, the paging retransmissions may be identifier-based paging retransmissions, and the second apparatus may transmit the identifiers of the devices with successful access attempt in the first paging occasion when transmitting the second paging request message. In some example embodiments, the second paging request message may include an access occasion, such as, paging occasion number. Alternatively, or in addition, the second paging request message may include the number of pagings or the number of remaining pagings. The number of the pagings may be used, for instance, to stop the procedure by early indication of 0 remaining pagings, or even - 1 to immediately stop the procedures. The number of pagings used together with 0 indicated access occasions may also be a way of indicating end of session.

[0064] In some other example embodiments, the paging retransmissions may be slot-based paging retransmissions, the first paging request message may also include an indication of a type of short identifier to be used in a paging retransmission. In some example embodiments, the second apparatus 220 may determine (2030) one or more access occasions based on the reception of the at least one first paging response. In addition, the second apparatus 220 may generate the second paging request message that indicates the one or more access occasions. The second information may include an allowed list for responding a second paging request message. In some example embodiments, theallowed list may include the slot number and the slot associated with paging attempt. In this case, the slot associated with paging attempt may refer to paging occasion. For example, the allowed list may not only indicate the slot number but also the slot associated with paging attempt that can be referred as paging occasion. The second paging request message may include the paging occasion or paging attempt number that can be used for the allowed list purpose. In this case, it can allow the paging retransmission to allow selected device from any of earlier paging attempts. In some example embodiments, the one or more access occasions are indicated by an access occasion number to reply the second paging request message. For example, the second information may include a paging occasion number and slot number(s) of previous transmissions. For example, slot number(s) information can be single value n may be interpreted as one of the: all the AloT devices (i.e., the first apparatues) that previously transmitted in slot number n or later shall respond to the paging retransmission; or all the AloT devices that previously transmitted in slot number n or earlier shall respond to the paging retransmission; or all the AloT devices that previously transmitted in slot number n may respond (multiple slot numbers can be indicated); or all devices that attempted to respond until certain time (e.g., until time slot N inclusive) shall not respond to the repeated paging request (cumulative acknowledgement of successful responses); and / or any device that attempted to respond after certain time (e.g., until time slot N inclusive) shall respond to the repeated paging request (cumulative request for remaining / unsuccessful responses); and / orall devices that attempted to respond withing a certain time (e.g., time slot N) shall not respond to the repeated paging request (selective request for remaining / unsuccessful responses), and / or, any device that attempted to respond within a certain time (e.g., time slot N) shall respond (again) to the repeated paging request (selective request for remaining / unsuccessful responses).

[0065] Alternatively, the one or more access occasions are indicated by a bitmap to indicate each access occasion whether to reply the second paging request message or not to reply the second paging request message. That is, the bitmap may be used to indicate the slot numbers of previous transmission that should continue in the current paging response. For example, if the bitmap is “0010”, it means that the first apparatus that transmitted its response to the first paging request message on the third access occasion needs to reply to the second paging request message. In some example embodiments, the one or more access occasions may include an access occasion without receiving the first paging response for the first paging request message. In some other example embodiments, the one or more access occasions may include an access occasion receiving more than one first paging responses for the first paging request message.

[0066] The second apparatus 220 transmits (2040) the second paging request message to the first apparatus. In other words, the first apparatus 210 receives (2040) the second paging request message from the second apparatus 220. The second paging request message includes the second informationrelated to at least one first apparatus 210 of which response to the first paging request message is received.

[0067] The first apparatus 210 compares (2050) the first information with the second information in the second paging request message. In addition, the first apparatus 210 determines (2060) a result of whether to respond to the second paging request message based on the comparison between the first information and the second information.

[0068] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus may compare (2050) a bitstring of the first information with a bitstring of the second information. If the bitstring of the first information does not match with the bitstring of the second information, the first apparatus 210 may determine (2060) to respond to the second paging request message, and the first apparatus may transmit (2070) a second paging response for the second paging request message to the second apparatus 220. For example, if the bitstring of the first information is “0000000000” and the bitstring of the second information “0000000001”, they do not match with each other, which means that the paging response for the first paging request message was not successfully received by the second apparatus 220.

[0069] In some other example embodiments, the first apparatus 210 may determine a length K of the received bitstring, where K is an integer, and the length K of the received bitstring may include the second information. In some example embodiments, the value K may be indicated in the first paging request message. In addition, the first apparatus 210 may compare a bitstring of the second information with last K bits of the first information. If the bitstring of the second information does not match with the last K bits of the first information, the first apparatus 210 may determine (2060) to respond to the second paging request message, and the first apparatus 210 may transmit (2070) a second paging response for the second paging request message to the second apparatus 220. For example, if the K bits of the first information is “0000” and the K bits the second information “0001”, they do not match with each other, which means that the paging response for the first paging request message was not successfully received by the second apparatus 220.

[0070] In some other example embodiments, the first apparatus 210 may determine (2060) to respond to the second paging request, and the first apparatus 210 may transmit (2070) a second paging response for the second paging request message to the second apparatus 220. The second paging request may include a second random identifier (ID) as a bitstring of length L, and L is an integer. In some example embodiments, the value L may be indicated in the second paging request message.

[0071] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus 210 may compare (2060) the bitstring of the first information with the bitstring of the second information. If the bitstring of the first information matches with the bitstring of the second information, the first apparatus 210 may ignore the second paging request message. For example, if the bitstring of the first information is “0000001111” and thebitstring of the second information “0000001111 ”, they match with each other, which means that the paging response for the first paging request message was successfully received by the second apparatus 220. Alternatively, the first apparatus 210 may determine the length K of the received bitstring, and the received bitstring includes the second information. In addition, the first apparatus 210 may compare (2060) the bitstring of the second information with the last K bits of the first information. If the last K bits of the first information match with the bitstring of the second information, the first apparatus 210 may ignore the second paging request message. For example, if the K bits of the first information is “1111 ” and the K bits the second information “1111 ”, they match with each other, which means that the paging response for the first paging request message was successfully received by the second apparatus 220.

[0072] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus 210 may transmit (2070) a second paging response message. In some example embodiments, the second paging response message may include a parameter, the parameter indicates whether the first apparatus 210 is retransmitting its response for a same paging session ID. In this way, it can help the second apparatus 220 to correct its allowed and disallowed list properly for next transmission. Alternatively, the second paging response message may include another generated random ID of the first apparatus 210. For example, as mentioned above, the second paging request may indicate the further length L, the second paging response message may include an L-bit generated random ID.

[0073] In some example embodiments, the first information may include at least one of access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted, and the second information may indicate one or more access occasions. In some example embodiments, the first apparatus 210 may compare (2050) the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information. Alternatively, the first apparatus 210 may compare (2050) a paging attempt number (i.e., the access occasion) for the first paging response with a paging attempt number indicated in the second information. In some example embodiments, if the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted matches with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information or matches the paging attempt number indicated in the second information, the first apparatus 110 may determine (2060) to respond to the second paging request message. In some example embodiments, the second paging request message may also include additional information to access control the random access response. This information is provided as last N bits of device ID. The devices matching this information may be only allowed for random access. In some other example embodiments, if the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted matches with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information, the first apparatus 110 may compare (2050) a generated random ID with a bitstring of the second information. If the bitstring of the generated random ID does not match with the bitstring of thesecond information, the first apparatus 110 may determine (2060) to respond to the second paging request message. In some example embodiments, the first apparatus 210 transmits (2070) a second paging response to the second apparatus 220.

[0074] In some example embodiments, if the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information includes the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted, the first apparatus 210 may determine that the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted matches with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information. In this case, the first apparatus 110 may determine (2060) to respond to the second paging request message. For example, if the first apparatus 210 transmitted its response on the second access occasion and the bitmap is “1100”, the first apparatus 110 may determine (2060) to respond to the second paging request message. In some other example embodiments, if the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted does not match with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information, the first apparatus may determine (2060) not to respond to the second paging request message, and the first apparatus 210 may ignore the second paging request message.

[0075] FIG. 3 illustrates an example signaling flow of a transmission between a reader and a device in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure. The signaling flow 300 involves the first A-loT device 310, the second A-loT device 320, the third A-loT device 330, the fourth A-loT device 340 and the reader 350. For example, the reader 350 may be the device 120 shown in FIG. 1 and the first A-loT device 310, each of the second A-loT device 320, the third A-loT device 330 and the fourth A-loT device 340 may be one device 110.

[0076] As shown in FIG. 3, at step 3010, the reader 350 transmits A-loT paging message to the first A-loT device 310, the second A-loT device 320, the third A-loT device 330, and the fourth A-loT device 340. In this case, a number of access occasions (AO) may be indicated in the A-loT paging message. Alternatively, the length of short identifier may be indicated in the A-loT paging message, which is used for the A-loT devices generating short identifiers, and the short identifiers are used to identify themselves in their responses. In some example embodiments, the length of short identifier may be expressed in form of number of bits used by AloT devices to generate a random number (i.e., a random ID). For example, as shown in FIG. 3, the reader 510 indicates to use 16 bits. In some example embodiments, if A slot based short identifier is used, the slot-based identifier may be indicated in the A-loT paging message and the length of short identifier in this case may be shorter than the length without using slot-based identifier.

[0077] After receiving the A-loT paging message, the first A-loT 310 may generate random short ID X1 of 16 bits, that is, X1 is between 1 and 2A16, and the first A-loT 310 may respond random short ID X1 at step 3020. Similar to the first A-loT 310, the random short ID X2 of 16 bits generated by thesecond A-loT device 320, and the random short ID X3 of 16 bits generated by the third A-loT device 330 are transmitted to the reader 350. Furthermore, the random short ID X4 of 16 bits generated by the fourth A-loT device 340 are transmitted but not received by the reader 350, for example, due to channel fading. In this case, the first A-loT device 310, the second A-loT device 320, the third A-loT device 330, and the fourth A-loT device 340 may store their the slot of transmission, the paging occasion, and the short ID generated for short duration, respectively.

[0078] After receiving the responses for the A-loT paging from the A-loT devices at step 3020, the reader 350 generates and transmit (3030) a paging retransmission. In some example embodiments, the paging retransmission may include a number of access occasions. Alternatively, the paging retransmission may include a further length of short identifiers to be used by the A-loT devices. In some example embodiments, the further length of short identifier may be expressed in the form of number-of-bits and may be used by the A-loT devices to generate another short ID. In some example embodiments, compared with step 3010, at step 3030, the reader 350 may change the number of access occasions and the length of short identifier based on the responses received at step 3020. For example, the number of access occasions may be less, and the length of short identifier may be shorter.

[0079] In some example embodiments, the retransmission A-loT paging message at step 3030 may include a disallowed list of AloT devices (i.e. devices which it doesn’t want to respond to this retransmission because e.g. it already got an answer through the first paging) whereby these AloT devices not allowed to respond are identified in this message by the short ID value which they generated and included in their previous response to the first paging at step 1 . The disallowed list for slot based short identifier may include the slot-id and paging occasion-id along with the short identifier. For example, the disallowed list includes the A-loT devices which the reader 350 received their responses at step 3020, as shown in FIG. 3, the disallowed list includes the first A-loT device 310, the second A-loT device 320, and the third A-loT device 310. In some example embodiments, the A-loT devices in the disallowed list may be identified in the retransmission A-loT paging message by the short ID value, X1 , X2, X3, which are generated by the A-loT devices and included in the responses in step 3020. Alternatively, the disallowed list for slot based short identifier may include the slot-ID and paging occasion-ID along with the short identifier.

[0080] As shown in FIG. 3, the first A-loT device 310, the second A-loT device 320, and the third A- loT device 330 do not reply the retransmission A-loT paging message. In some example embodiments, these A-loT devices compare the short ID generated and stored, with the short ID included in the disallowed list, then may determine not to reply because X1 , X2, X3 generated before are included in the disallowed list. Alternatively, the fourth A-loT device 340 may determine to reply because X4 generated before is not included in the disallowed list. At step 3040, the fourth A-loT device 340 maygenerate random short ID X4’ of 8 bits length, which is indicated in the retransmission A-loT paging message. After step 3040, the fourth A-loT device 340 may transmit the random short ID X4’ to the reader 350 at step 3050.

[0081] According to example embodiments of the present disclosure in FIG. 3, the A-loT paging message includes a short-identifier configuration for filtering paging retransmission. In some example embodiments, the short-identifier configuration may indicate number of bits, and the A-loT devices may generate a short ID which may identify the A-loT device itself based on the number of bits. Alternatively, the short-identifier configuration may indicate a number of access occasions to be used when accessing the media for the responses. In some other example embodiments, the retransmitting A-loT paging message may include a disallowed list of A-loT devices, and these A-loT may ignore the retransmitting A-loT paging message. In some example embodiments, the A-loT devices in the disallowed list may be identified by using the short identifier which generated and stored by the A-loT device in its response to the first paging. Alternatively, the A-loT devices in the disallowed list may be identified by paging transmission counter and the short identifier. In this way, the reader can clearly indicate which AloT device(s) need to be paged for the second time, thereby improving the paging efficiency.

[0082] FIG. 4 illustrates another example signaling flow of a transmission between a reader and a device in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure. The signaling flow 400 involves the first A-loT device 310, the second A-loT device 320, the third A-loT device 330, the fourth A-loT device 340 and the reader 350.

[0083] The reader 350 may transmit (4010) an AloT paging message to a group of AloT devices, such as, the first A-loT device 310, the second A-loT device 320, the third A-loT device 330, the fourth A-loT device 340. Contents in the AloT paging message (i.e., the first paging request message) have been described with reference to FIG. 2, which are omitted here.

[0084] The group of AloT devices may transmit (4020) their paging responses to the reader 350, respectively. For example, the first AloT device 310 may transmit its paging response on the access occasion 1 . The second and fourth AloT devices 320 and 340 may transmit their paging responses on the access occasion 2, which causes a collision. The third AloT device 330 may transmit its paging response on the access occasion 4. Contents in the paging responses (i.e., the first paging response message) have been described with reference to FIG. 2, which are omitted here.

[0085] The reader 350 may successfully receive the paging responses from the first and third AloT devices 310 and 330. Due to the collision, the paging responses for the second and fourth AloT devices 320 and 340 are not received by the reader 350.

[0086] The reader 350 may retransmit (4030) the AloT paging message to the group of AloT devices. The retransmitted AloT paging message may indicate the index / number the access occasion which isrequested / allowed to retransmit. For example, since the paging responses transmitted on the access occasion 2 are not received and there is no response on access occasion 3, the AloT paging message may indicate the access occasion 2 and / or access occasion 3. In this case, after receiving the retransmitted AloT paging message, the first and third AloT devise 310 and 330 may determine not to respond to the paging, the access occasions corresponding to their paging responses are not indicated in the retransmitted AloT paging message. The second and fourth AloT devise 310 and 340 may determine to respond to the paging, since the access occasions corresponding to their paging responses are indicated in the retransmitted AloT paging message. For example, as shown in FIG. 5, the second AloT device 320 may transmit (4040) its paging response for the retransmitted AloT paging message on the access occasion T and the fourth AloT device 340 may transmit (4040) its paging response for the retransmitted AloT paging message on the access occasion 3’. Other contents in the retransmitted paging responses (i.e., the second paging request message) and the contents in the paging response for the retransmitted paging responses (i.e., the second paging response message) have been described with reference to FIG. 2, which are omitted here.

[0087] FIG. 5 illustrates another example signaling flow of a transmission between a reader and a device in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure. The signaling flow 500 involves the first A-loT device 310, the second A-loT device 320, the third A-loT device 330, the fourth A-loT device 340 and the reader 350.

[0088] The reader 350 may transmit (5010) an AloT paging message to a group of AloT devices, such as, the first A-loT device 310, the second A-loT device 320, the third A-loT device 330, the fourth A-loT device 340. Contents in the AloT paging message (i.e., the first paging request message) have been described with reference to FIG. 2, which are omitted here.

[0089] The group of AloT devices may transmit (5020) their paging responses to the reader 350, respectively. For example, the first AloT device 310 may transmit its paging response on the access occasion 1 . The second and fourth AloT devices 320 and 340 may transmit their paging responses on the access occasion 2, which causes a collision. The third AloT device 330 may transmit its paging response on the access occasion 4. Contents in the paging responses (i.e., the first paging response message) have been described with reference to FIG. 2, which are omitted here.

[0090] The reader 350 may successfully receive the paging responses from the first and third AloT devices 310 and 330. Due to the collision, the paging responses for the second and fourth AloT devices 320 and 340 are not received by the reader 350.

[0091] The reader 350 may retransmit (5030) the AloT paging message to the group of AloT devices. The retransmitted AloT paging message may include a bitmap, pointing to each of the access occasions, with 0 / 1 indicating request / no request for retransmission or allow / disallow for retransmission. For example, since the paging responses transmitted on the access occasion 2 arenot received, the bitmap may be [0, 1 , 0, 0], which means that the response on the access occasion 2 is not received. In this case, after receiving the retransmitted AloT paging message, the first and third AloT devise 310 and 330 may determine not to respond to the paging, since bits in the bitmap corresponding to the access occasion 1 and 4 are 0. The second and fourth AloT devise 310 and 340 may determine to respond to the paging, since a bit in the bitmap corresponding to the access occasion 2 is 0. For example, as shown in FIG. 5, the second AloT device 320 may transmit (5040) its paging response for the retransmitted AloT paging message on the access occasion T and the fourth AloT device 340 may transmit (5040) its paging response for the retransmitted AloT paging message on the access occasion 3’. Other contents in the retransmitted paging responses (i.e., the second paging request message) and the contents in the paging response for the retransmitted paging responses (i.e., the second paging response message) have been described with reference to FIG. 2, which are omitted here.

[0092] FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of an example method 600 implemented at a first apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the method 600 will be described from the perspective of the device 110 in FIG. 1.

[0093] At block 610, the first apparatus determines first information that is related to a first paging response for a first paging request message that is received from a second apparatus.

[0094] At block 620, the first apparatus stores the first information.

[0095] At block 630, the first apparatus receives, from the second apparatus, a second paging request message that comprises second information related to at least one first apparatus of which response to the first paging request message is received.

[0096] At block 640, the first apparatus compares the first information with the second information in the second paging request message.

[0097] At block 650, the first apparatus determines a result of whether to respond to the second paging request message based on the comparison between the first information and the second information.

[0098] In some example embodiments, the determining the first information further comprises: generating a random identifier (ID) as a bitstring of length N, wherein N is an integer; adding the generated random ID in the first paging response message; and determining the first information to be the generated random ID or a portion of the generated random ID.

[0099] In some example embodiments, the determining the result of whether to respond to the second paging request message based on the comparison between the first information and the second information further comprises: comparing a bitstring of the first information with a bitstring of the second information; in response that there is no matching between the bitstring of the first information with the bitstring of the second information, determining to respond to the second pagingrequest message; and transmitting, to the second apparatus, a second paging response for the second paging request message.

[0100] In some example embodiments, the determining the result of whether to respond to the second paging request message based on the comparison between the first information and the second information further comprises: determining a length K of the received bitstring comprising the second information, wherein K is an integer; comparing a bitstring of the second information with last K bits of the first information; in response that there is no match between the bitstring of the second information with the last K bits of the first information, determining to respond to the second paging request message; and transmitting, to the second apparatus, a second paging response for the second paging request message.

[0101] In some example embodiments, the value K is indicated in the first paging request message.

[0102] In some example embodiments, the length N of the bitstring to be generated is indicated in the first paging request message.

[0103] In some example embodiments, the method 600 further comprises: determining to respond to the second paging request; and transmitting, to the second apparatus, a second paging response for the second paging request including a second random identifier (ID) as a bitstring of length L, wherein L is an integer.

[0104] In some example embodiments, the value L is indicated in the second paging request message.

[0105] In some example embodiments, the determining the result of whether to respond to the second paging request message based on the comparison between the first information and the second information further comprises: comparing the bitstring of the first information with the bitstring of the second information; and in response that there is a matching between the bitstring of the first information and the bitstring of the second information, ignoring the second paging request message.

[0106] In some example embodiments, the determining the result of whether to respond to the second paging request message based on the comparison between the first information and the second information further comprises: determining the length K of the received bitstring comprising the second information; comprising the bitstring of the second information with the last K bits of the first information; and in response that there is a match between the bitstring of the second information with the last K bits of the first information, ignoring the second paging request message.

[0107] In some example embodiments, the first paging response message further comprises at least one of: an identity of the first apparatus, or another generated random ID used for collision based avoidance.

[0108] In some example embodiments, the second paging response message further comprises a parameter indicating whether the first apparatus is retransmitting its response for a same pagingsession ID.

[0109] In some example embodiments, the first paging request message further comprises at least one of: a parameter for first apparatuses that never triggered paging response for a given paging- session-ID, or a subset of first apparatuses to respond for the given paging occasion.

[0110] In some example embodiments, the first information comprises at least one of: an access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted, and the second information indicates at least one of: a paging attempt number or one or more access occasions, and the method 600 further comprises at lats one of: comparing the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information; or compare the access occasion with the paging attempt number indicated in the second information.

[0111] In some example embodiments, the method 600 further comprises: in response to that the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted matches with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information or matches with the paging attempt number in the second information, determining to respond to the second paging request message; and transmitting, to the second apparatus, a second paging response for the second paging request message.

[0112] In some example embodiments, the method 600 further comprises: in response to that the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted matches with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information or matches with the paging attempt number in the second information, comparing a generated random ID with a bitstring of the second information; and in response that there is no matching between the bitstring of the first information with the bitstring of the second information, determining to respond to the second paging request message.

[0113] In some example embodiments, the method 600 further comprises: in response to that the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information comprises the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted, determining that the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted matches with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information.

[0114] In some example embodiments, the method 600 further comprises: in response to that the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted does not match with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information, determining not to respond to the second paging request message; and ignoring the second paging request message.

[0115] In some example embodiments, the access occasions are indicated in the second information by at least one of the following: an access occasion number to reply the second paging request message, or a bitmap to indicate each access occasion whether to reply the second paging request message or not to reply the second paging request message.

[0116] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus is an ambient internet of thing (A-loT) device, and the second apparatus is a reader, wherein the reader is included in a terminal device or a network device.

[0117] FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of an example method 700 implemented at a second apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the method 700 will be described from the perspective of the device 120 in FIG. 1.

[0118] At block 710, the second apparatus receives, from at least one first apparatuses, at least one first paging response for a first paging request message.

[0119] At block 720, the second apparatus determines second information based on the at least one first paging response.

[0120] At block 730, the second apparatus transmits, to one or more first apparatuses, a second paging request message that comprises the second information related to the at least one first apparatus of which response to the first paging request message is received.

[0121] In some example embodiments, the at least one first paging response comprises a random identifier (ID) bitstring of length N.

[0122] In some example embodiments, the method 700 further includes: generating the second information based on at least a portion of the received random ID of the at least one first apparatus; and transmitting, to the one or more first apparatuses, the second paging request message that comprises the second information comprising the at least portion of the random ID.

[0123] In some example embodiments, the second information further comprises another identity of the at least one first apparatus.

[0124] In some example embodiments, the first paging response message further comprises at least one of: an identity of the first apparatus; another generated random ID used for collision based avoidance.

[0125] In some example embodiments, the first paging request message further indicates a length N used by the at least one first apparatus to generate the random ID included in the first paging response, wherein N is an integer.

[0126] In some example embodiments, the second paging request indicates a further length L to be used by the at least one first apparatus for generating a further random ID bitstring of length L to be included in the second paging response message, wherein L is an integer.

[0127] In some example embodiments, the further length L is different than the length N.

[0128] In some example embodiments, the method 700 further comprises: determining one or more access occasions based on the reception of the at least one first paging response; and generating the second paging request message that indicates the one or more access occasions.

[0129] In some example embodiments, the one or more access occasions are indicated by at leastone of the following: an access occasion number to reply the second paging request message, or a bitmap to indicate each access occasion whether to reply the second paging request message or not to reply the second paging request message.

[0130] In some example embodiments, the one or more access occasions comprise one of: an access occasion without receiving the first paging response for the first paging request message; or an access occasion receiving more than one first paging responses for the first paging request message.

[0131] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus is an ambient internet of thing (A-loT) device, and the second apparatus is a reader, wherein the reader is included in a terminal device or a network device.

[0132] In some example embodiments, a first apparatus capable of performing any of the method 600 (for example, the device 110 in FIG. 1 ) may comprise means for performing the respective operations of the method 600. 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 device 110 in FIG. 1 .

[0133] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises means for determining first information that is related to a first paging response for a first paging request message that is received from a second apparatus; means for storing the first information; means for receiving, from the second apparatus, a second paging request message that comprises second information related to at least one first apparatus of which response to the first paging request message is received; means for comparing the first information with the second information in the second paging request message; and means for determining a result of whether to respond to the second paging request message based on the comparison between the first information and the second information.

[0134] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises includes: means for generating a random identifier (ID) as a bitstring of length N, wherein N is an integer; means for adding the generated random ID in the first paging response message; and means for determining the first information to be the generated random ID or a portion of the generated random ID.

[0135] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises includes: means for comparing a bitstring of the first information with a bitstring of the second information; means for in response that there is no matching between the bitstring of the first information with the bitstring of the second information, determining to respond to the second paging request message; and means for transmitting, to the second apparatus, a second paging response for the second paging request message.

[0136] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises includes: means for determining a length K of the received bitstring comprising the second information, wherein K is aninteger; means for comparing a bitstring of the second information with last K bits of the first information; means for in response that there is no match between the bitstring of the second information with the last K bits of the first information, determining to respond to the second paging request message; and means for transmitting, to the second apparatus, a second paging response for the second paging request message.

[0137] In some example embodiments, the value K is indicated in the first paging request message.

[0138] In some example embodiments, the length N of the bitstring to be generated is indicated in the first paging request message.

[0139] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for determining to respond to the second paging request; and means for transmitting, to the second apparatus, a second paging response for the second paging request including a second random identifier (ID) as a bitstring of length L, wherein L is an integer.

[0140] In some example embodiments, the value L is indicated in the second paging request message.

[0141] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises includes: means for comparing the bitstring of the first information with the bitstring of the second information; and means for in response that there is a matching between the bitstring of the first information and the bitstring of the second information, ignoring the second paging request message.

[0142] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises includes: means for determining the length K of the received bitstring comprising the second information; means for comprising the bitstring of the second information with the last K bits of the first information; and means for in response that there is a match between the bitstring of the second information with the last K bits of the first information, ignoring the second paging request message.

[0143] In some example embodiments, the first paging response message further comprises at least one of: an identity of the first apparatus, or another generated random ID used for collision based avoidance.

[0144] In some example embodiments, the second paging response message further comprises a parameter indicating whether the first apparatus is retransmitting its response for a same paging session ID.

[0145] In some example embodiments, the first paging request message further comprises at least one of: a parameter for first apparatuses that never triggered paging response for a given paging- session-ID, or a subset of first apparatuses to respond for the given paging occasion.

[0146] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for comparing the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information.

[0147] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for in response to that the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted matches with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information, determining to respond to the second paging request message; and means for transmitting, to the second apparatus, a second paging response for the second paging request message.

[0148] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for in response to that the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted matches with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information, comparing a generated random ID with a bitstring of the second information; and means for in response that there is no matching between the bitstring of the first information with the bitstring of the second information, determining to respond to the second paging request message.

[0149] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for in response to that the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information comprises the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted, determining that the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted matches with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information.

[0150] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for in response to that the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted does not match with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information, determining not to respond to the second paging request message; and means for ignoring the second paging request message.

[0151] In some example embodiments, the access occasions are indicated in the second information by at least one of the following: an access occasion number to reply the second paging request message, or a bitmap to indicate each access occasion whether to reply the second paging request message or not to reply the second paging request message.

[0152] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus is an ambient internet of thing (A-loT) device, and the second apparatus is a reader, wherein the reader is included in a terminal device or a network device.

[0153] In some example embodiments, a second apparatus capable of performing any of the method 700 (for example, the device 120 in FIG. 1 ) may comprise means for performing the respective operations of the method 700. 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 device 120 in FIG. 1.

[0154] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus comprises means for receiving, from at least one first apparatuses, at least one first paging response for a first paging request message; means for determining second information based on the at least one first paging response; and meansfor transmitting, to one or more first apparatuses, a second paging request message that comprises the second information related to the at least one first apparatus of which response to the first paging request message is received.

[0155] In some example embodiments, the at least one first paging response comprises a random identifier (ID) bitstring of length N.

[0156] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus comprises: means for generating the second information based on at least a portion of the received random ID of the at least one first apparatus; and means for transmitting, to the one or more first apparatuses, the second paging request message that comprises the second information comprising the at least portion of the random ID.

[0157] In some example embodiments, the second information further comprises another identity of the at least one first apparatus.

[0158] In some example embodiments, the first paging response message further comprises at least one of: an identity of the first apparatus; another generated random ID used for collision based avoidance.

[0159] In some example embodiments, the first paging request message further indicates a length N used by the at least one first apparatus to generate the random ID included in the first paging response, wherein N is an integer.

[0160] In some example embodiments, the second paging request indicates a further length L to be used by the at least one first apparatus for generating a further random ID bitstring of length L to be included in the second paging response message, wherein L is an integer.

[0161] In some example embodiments, the further length L is different than the length N.

[0162] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for determining one or more access occasions based on the reception of the at least one first paging response; and means for generating the second paging request message that indicates the one or more access occasions.

[0163] In some example embodiments, the one or more access occasions are indicated by at least one of the following: an access occasion number to reply the second paging request message, or a bitmap to indicate each access occasion whether to reply the second paging request message or not to reply the second paging request message.

[0164] In some example embodiments, the one or more access occasions comprise one of: an access occasion without receiving the first paging response for the first paging request message; or an access occasion receiving more than one first paging responses for the first paging request message.

[0165] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus is an ambient internet of thing (A-loT)device, and the second apparatus is a reader, wherein the reader is included in a terminal device or a network device.

[0166] 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 device 110 or the device 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.

[0167] 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.

[0168] 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.

[0169] 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.

[0170] 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 performing operations / 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.

[0171] 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. 7. The example embodiments of the present disclosure may also be implemented by hardware or by a combination of software and hardware.

[0172] In some example embodiments, the program 830 may be tangibly contained in a computerreadable 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).

[0173] FIG. 9 shows an example of the computer readable medium 900 which may be in form of CD, DVD or other optical storage disk. The computer readable medium 900 has the program 830 stored thereon.

[0174] 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.

[0175] 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. Machineexecutable 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.

[0176] 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 themachine, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the machine and partly on a remote machine or entirely on the remote machine or server.

[0177] 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.

[0178] 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.

[0179] 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.

[0180] Although the present disclosure has been described in languages specific to structural features 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

l / WE CLAIM: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 to: determine first information that is related to a first paging response for a first paging request message that is received from a second apparatus; store the first information; receive, from the second apparatus, a second paging request message that comprises second information related to at least one first apparatus of which response to the first paging request message is received; compare the first information with the second information in the second paging request message; and determine a result of whether to respond to the second paging request message based on the comparison between the first information and the second information.

2. The first apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the determining the first information further comprises: generating a random identifier (ID) as a bitstring of length N, wherein N is an integer; adding the generated random ID in the first paging response message; and determining the first information to be the generated random ID or a portion of the generated random ID.

3. The first apparatus of claim 1 or 2, wherein the determining the result of whether to respond to the second paging request message based on the comparison between the first information and the second information further comprises: compare a bitstring of the first information with a bitstring of the second information; in response that there is no matching between the bitstring of the first information with the bitstring of the second information, determining to respond to the second paging request message; and transmitting, to the second apparatus, a second paging response for the second paging request message.

4. The first apparatus of claim 1 to 3, wherein the determining the result of whether to respond to the second paging request message based on the comparison between the first information and the secondinformation further comprises: determining a length K of the received bitstring comprising the second information, wherein K is an integer; comparing a bitstring of the second information with last K bits of the first information; in response that there is no match between the bitstring of the second information with the last K bits of the first information, determining to respond to the second paging request message; and transmitting, to the second apparatus, a second paging response for the second paging request message.

5. The first apparatus of claim 4, wherein the value K is indicated in the first paging request message.

6. The first apparatus of any of claims 2-5, wherein the length N of the bitstring to be generated is indicated in the first paging request message.

7. The first apparatus of any of claims 1-8, wherein the first apparatus is caused to: determine to respond to the second paging request; and transmit, to the second apparatus, a second paging response for the second paging request including a second random identifier (ID) as a bitstring of length L, wherein L is an integer.

8. The first apparatus of claim 7, wherein the value L is indicated in the second paging request message.

9. The first apparatus of any of claims 1 -8, wherein the determining the result of whether to respond to the second paging request message based on the comparison between the first information and the second information further comprises: compare the bitstring of the first information with the bitstring of the second information; and in response that there is a matching between the bitstring of the first information and the bitstring of the second information, ignoring the second paging request message.

10. The first apparatus of any of claims 1 -9, wherein the determining the result of whether to respond to the second paging request message based on the comparison between the first information and the second information further comprises: determining the length K of the received bitstring comprising the second information; comprising the bitstring of the second information with the last K bits of the first information; and in response that there is a match between the bitstring of the second information with the last K bits ofthe first information, ignoring the second paging request message.11 . The first apparatus of any of claims 1-10, wherein the first paging response message further comprises at least one of: an identity of the first apparatus, or another generated random ID used for collision based avoidance.

12. The first apparatus of any of claims 1-11 , wherein the second paging response message further comprises a parameter indicating whether the first apparatus is retransmitting its response for a same paging session ID.

13. The first apparatus of any of claims 1-12, wherein the first paging request message further comprises at least one of: a parameter for first apparatuses that never triggered paging response for a given paging-session-ID, or a subset of first apparatuses to respond for the given paging occasion.

14. The first apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first information comprises at least one of: an access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted, and the second information indicates at least one of: a paging attempt number or one or more access occasions, and wherein the first apparatus is caused to at least one of: compare the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information; or compare the access occasion with the paging attempt number indicated in the second information.

15. The first apparatus of claim 14, wherein the first apparatus is caused to: in response to that the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted matches with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information or matches with the paging attempt number in the second information, determine to respond to the second paging request message; and transmit, to the second apparatus, a second paging response for the second paging request message.

16. The first apparatus of claim 14, wherein the first apparatus is caused to: in response to that the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted matches with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information or matches with the paging attempt number indicated in the second information, compare a generated random ID with a bitstring of the secondinformation; and in response that there is no matching between the bitstring of the first information with the bitstring of the second information, determining to respond to the second paging request message.

17. The first apparatus of claim 14, wherein the first apparatus is caused to: in response to that the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information comprises the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted, determine that the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted matches with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information.

18. The first apparatus of claim 13, wherein the first apparatus is caused to: in response to that the access occasion on which the first paging response is transmitted does not match with the one or more access occasions indicated in the second information, determine not to respond to the second paging request message; and ignore the second paging request message.

19. The first apparatus of claim 13, wherein the access occasions are indicated in the second information by at least one of the following: an access occasion number to reply the second paging request message, or a bitmap to indicate each access occasion whether to reply the second paging request message or not to reply the second paging request message.

20. The first apparatus of any of claims 1-19, wherein the first apparatus is an ambient internet of thing (A-loT) device, and the second apparatus is a reader, wherein the reader is included in a terminal device or a network device.21 . 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 to: receive, from at least one first apparatuses, at least one first paging response for a first paging request message; determine second information based on the at least one first paging response; and transmit, to one or more first apparatuses, a second paging request message that comprises the second information related to the at least one first apparatus of which response to the first paging requestmessage is received.

22. The second apparatus of claim 21 , wherein the at least one first paging response comprises a random identifier (ID) bitstring of length N.

23. The second apparatus of claim 22, wherein the first apparatus is caused to: generate the second information based on at least a portion of the received random ID of the at least one first apparatus; and transmit, to the one or more first apparatuses, the second paging request message that comprises the second information comprising the at least portion of the random ID.

24. The second apparatus of claim 23, wherein the second information further comprises another identity of the at least one first apparatus.

25. The second apparatus of any of claims 21-24, wherein the first paging response message further comprises at least one of: an identity of the first apparatus; or another generated random ID used for collision based avoidance.

26. The second apparatus of claim 21 , wherein the first paging request message further indicates a length N used by the at least one first apparatus to generate the random ID included in the first paging response, wherein N is an integer.

27. The second apparatus of claim 26, wherein the second paging request indicates a further length L to be used by the at least one first apparatus for generating a further random ID bitstring of length L to be included in the second paging response message, wherein L is an integer.

28. The second apparatus of claim 27, wherein the further length L is different than the length N.

29. The second apparatus of claim 21 , wherein the second apparatus is caused to: determine one or more access occasions based on the reception of the at least one first paging response; and generate the second paging request message that indicates the one or more access occasions.

30. The second apparatus of claim 29, wherein the one or more access occasions are indicated by atleast one of the following: an access occasion number to reply the second paging request message, or a bitmap to indicate each access occasion whether to reply the second paging request message or not to reply the second paging request message.31 . The second apparatus of claim 30, wherein the one or more access occasions comprise one of: an access occasion without receiving the first paging response for the first paging request message; or an access occasion receiving more than one first paging responses for the first paging request message.

32. The second apparatus of any of claims 21 -31 , wherein the first apparatus is an ambient internet of thing (A-loT) device, and the second apparatus is a reader, wherein the reader is included in a terminal device or a network device.

33. A method comprising: determining, at a first apparatus, first information that is related to a first paging response for a first paging request message that is received from a second apparatus; storing the first information; receiving, from the second apparatus, a second paging request message that comprises second information related to at least one first apparatus of which response to the first paging request message is received; comparing the first information with the second information in the second paging request message; and determining a result of whether to respond to the second paging request message based on the comparison between the first information and the second information.

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