Terminal device positioning with RF source

Abstract

Example embodiments of the present disclosure are related to terminal device positioning with a radio frequency (RF) source(s). A method comprises receiving first information indicating a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one RF source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol which is different from a second wireless communication protocol between the first apparatus and the second apparatus; for a respective RF source, performing at least one measurement on a signal energy received from the RF source, and determining, based on the corresponding at least one measurement result and the transmit power of the RF source, a relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and the RF source; and determining an estimate of a location of the first apparatus based on the respective location of the at least one RF source and the respective relative positioning relation.

Description

TERMINAL DEVICE POSITIONING WITH RF SOURCERELATED APPLICATION

[0001] This application claims priority to US provisional Application No. 63 / 710890 filed October 23, 2024, which is incorporated herein 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 terminal device positioning with a radio frequency (RF) source(s).BACKGROUND

[0003] A communication network may serve as a facility that enables communications between two or more communication devices or provides communication devices access to a data network. A mobile or wireless communication network is one example of a communication network. Such communication networks operate in accordance with standards, such as those promulgated by 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) or ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute). Examples of such standards include the so-called 5G (5th Generation) standard or other standards promulgated by 3GPP.

[0004] A location of user equipment (UE) may be useful or essential to a number of applications including emergency calls, navigation, direction finding, asset tracking and Internet service. In a cellular communication network, for example, a network device may send downlink reference signals with which positioning measurements are obtained by a UE and / or the UE may send uplink reference signals with which positioning measurements are obtained by the base stations. The UE may compute an estimate of its own location using the positioning measurements in UE-based positioning or may send the positioning measurements to a network entity, e.g., location server, which may compute the UE location based on the positioning measurements in UE-assisted positioning.SUMMARY

[0005] In a first aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a first apparatus. The first apparatus comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first apparatus at least to: receive, from a second apparatus, first information indicating a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol which is different from a second wireless communication protocol between the first apparatus and the second apparatus; for a respective one of the at least one RF source, perform at least one measurement on a signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain at least one measurement result for the RF source; for a respective one of the at least one RF source, determine, based on the corresponding at least one measurement result and the transmit power of the RF source, a relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and the RF source; and determine an estimate of a location of the first apparatus based on the respective location of the at least one RF source and the respective relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and the at least one RF source.

[0006] In a second aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a second apparatus. The second apparatus comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the second apparatus at least to: transmit, to a target terminal device to be positioned, first information indicating a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source in vicinity of the target terminal device, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the second apparatus and the target terminal device.

[0007] In a third aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a third apparatus. The third apparatus comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the third apparatus at least to: obtain a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol supported by the third apparatus; and transmit, to a terminal device operating as a server for positioning of a target terminal device to be positioned, first information indicating the respective transmitpower and the respective location of the at least one RF source.

[0008] In a fourth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a first apparatus. The first apparatus comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first apparatus at least to: receive, from a network device, an indication for performing energy measurement on at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the first apparatus and the network device; for a respective one of the at least one RF source, perform at least one measurement on a signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain at least one measurement result for the RF source; and transmit, to the network device, respective at least one measurement result for the at least one RF source, for location estimate of the first apparatus.

[0009] In a fifth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a second apparatus. The second apparatus comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the second apparatus at least to: transmit, to a target terminal device to be positioned, an indication for performing energy measurement on at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the second apparatus and the target terminal device; and receive, from the target terminal device, respective at least one measurement result on a signal energy received from the at least one RF source, for location estimate of the target terminal device.

[0010] In a sixth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: receiving, from a second apparatus, first information indicating a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol which is different from a second wireless communication protocol between the first apparatus and the second apparatus; for a respective one of the at least one RF source, performing at least one measurement on a signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain at least one measurement result for the RF source; for a respective one of the at least one RF source, determining, based on the corresponding at least one measurement result and the transmit power of the RF source, a relative positioning relation between the first apparatusand the RF source; and determining an estimate of a location of the first apparatus based on the respective location of the at least one RF source and the respective relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and the at least one RF source.

[0011] In a seventh aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: transmitting, to a target terminal device to be positioned, first information indicating a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source in vicinity of the target terminal device, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the second apparatus and the target terminal device.

[0012] In an eighth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: obtaining a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol supported by the third apparatus; and transmitting, to a terminal device operating as a server for positioning of a target terminal device to be positioned, first information indicating the respective transmit power and the respective location of the at least one RF source.

[0013] In a ninth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: receiving, from a network device, an indication for performing energy measurement on at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the first apparatus and the network device; for a respective one of the at least one RF source, performing at least one measurement on a signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain at least one measurement result for the RF source; and transmitting, to the network device, respective at least one measurement result for the at least one RF source, for location estimate of the first apparatus.

[0014] In a tenth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: transmitting, to a target terminal device to be positioned, an indication for performing energy measurement on at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the second apparatus and the target terminal device; and receiving, from the target terminal device, respective at least onemeasurement result on a signal energy received from the at least one RF source, for location estimate of the target terminal device.

[0015] In an eleventh aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a first apparatus. The first apparatus comprises means for receiving, from a second apparatus, first information indicating a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol which is different from a second wireless communication protocol between the first apparatus and the second apparatus; means for, for a respective one of the at least one RF source, performing at least one measurement on a signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain at least one measurement result for the RF source; means for, for a respective one of the at least one RF source, determining, based on the corresponding at least one measurement result and the transmit power of the RF source, a relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and the RF source; and means for determining an estimate of a location of the first apparatus based on the respective location of the at least one RF source and the respective relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and the at least one RF source.

[0016] In a twelfth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a second apparatus. The second apparatus comprises means for transmitting, to a target terminal device to be positioned, first information indicating a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source in vicinity of the target terminal device, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the second apparatus and the target terminal device.

[0017] In a thirteenth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a third apparatus. The third apparatus comprises means for obtaining a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol supported by the third apparatus; and means for transmitting, to a terminal device operating as a server for positioning of a target terminal device to be positioned, first information indicating the respective transmit power and the respective location of the at least one RF source.

[0018] In a fourteenth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a firstapparatus. The first apparatus comprises means for receiving, from a network device, an indication for performing energy measurement on at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the first apparatus and the network device; means for, for a respective one of the at least one RF source, performing at least one measurement on a signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain at least one measurement result for the RF source; and means for transmitting, to the network device, respective at least one measurement result for the at least one RF source, for location estimate of the first apparatus.

[0019] In a fifteenth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a second apparatus. The second apparatus comprises means for transmitting, to a target terminal device to be positioned, an indication for performing energy measurement on at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the second apparatus and the target terminal device; and means for receiving, from the target terminal device, respective at least one measurement result on a signal energy received from the at least one RF source, for location estimate of the target terminal device.

[0020] In a sixteenth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium comprises instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus to perform at least the method according to the sixth aspect, the seventh aspect, the eighth aspect, the ninth aspect, or the tenth aspect.

[0021] 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.

[0022] 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

[0023] Some example embodiments will now be described with reference to theaccompanying drawings, where:

[0024] FIG. 1 illustrates an example communication environment in which example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented;

[0025] FIG. 2 illustrates a signaling flow for estimation of a transmit power and location of a RF source in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0026] FIG. 3 illustrates a flowchart of a process for determining a transmit power and location of a RF source based on energy measurement results in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0027] FIG. 4 illustrates a signaling flow for terminal device positioning using a RF source(s) in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0028] FIG. 5 illustrates a signaling flow for terminal device positioning using a RF source(s) in accordance with some other example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0029] FIG. 6A illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at a first apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0030] FIG. 6B illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at a second apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0031] FIG. 6C illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at a third apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0032] FIG. 7A illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at a first apparatus in accordance with some other example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0033] FIG. 7B illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at a second apparatus in accordance with some other example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0034] FIG. 8 illustrates a simplified block diagram of a device that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure; and

[0035] FIG. 9 illustrates a block diagram of an example computer readable medium in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0036] Throughout the drawings, the same or similar reference numerals represent the same or similar element.DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0037] 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.

[0038] 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.

[0039] 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.

[0040] 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.

[0041] 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.

[0042] 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.

[0043] 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.

[0044] 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.

[0045] 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 processorintegrated circuit for a mobile device or a similar integrated circuit in server, a cellular network device, or other computing or network device.

[0046] 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 (1G), the second generation (2G), 2.5G, 2.75G, the third generation (3G), the fourth generation (4G), 4.5G, the fifth generation (5G), the sixth generation (6G) communication protocols, and / or any other protocols either currently known or to be developed in the future. Embodiments of the present disclosure may be applied in various communication systems. Given the rapid development in communications, there will of course also be future type communication technologies and systems with which the present disclosure may be embodied. It should not be seen as limiting the scope of the present disclosure to only the aforementioned system.

[0047] 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 (IAB) 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.

[0048] The term “terminal device” refers to any end device that may be capable ofwireless 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.

[0049] As used herein, the term “resource,” “transmission resource,” “resource block,” “physical resource block” (PRB), “uplink resource,” or “downlink resource” may refer to any resource for performing a communication, for example, a communication between a terminal device and a network device, such as a resource in time domain, a resource in frequency domain, a resource in space domain, a resource in code domain, or any other combination of the time, frequency, space and / or code domain resource enabling a communication, and the like. In the following, unless explicitly stated, a resource in both frequency domain and time domain will be used as an example of a transmission resource for describing some example embodiments of the present disclosure. It is noted that example embodiments of the present disclosure are equally applicable to other resources in other domains.

[0050] FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic diagram of an example communication environment 100 in which example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented. In the communication environment 100, a plurality of communicationdevices, including terminal devices 110, 115-1, 115-2, 115-3, 115-4, and a plurality of network devices 120-1, 120-2, and 120-3, may communicate with each other. The network devices 120-1, 120-2, and 120-3 are sometimes collectively or individually referred to as network devices 120.

[0051] In the example of FIG. 1 , a terminal device may be a UE and a network device 120 may be a base station serving the UE. The serving area of a network device 120 may be called a cell (e.g., a cell 102-1 for the network device 120-1, a cell 102-2 for the network device 120-2, and a cell 102-3 for the network device 120-3). The network device 120 is operating in a radio access network (RAN) and thus is also referred to as a RAN network device. The cells 102-1, 102-2, and 102-3 are sometimes collectively or individually referred to as cells 102. The terminal devices and the network devices 120 may consist of a RAN, and entities in the RAN may further communicate with a core network (CN) 130 which may include various CN network node(s) 135. For the purpose of terminal device positioning, the CN network node(s) 135 may include a location management function (LMF), a sensing management function (SeMF), etc.

[0052] In some example embodiments, there may be one or more positioning reference units (PRUs), e.g., PRU 116, deployed in the communication environment, which may be utilized to facilitate positioning of a terminal device.

[0053] 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 100 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 102, and one or more additional cells may be deployed in the communication environment 100. It is noted that although illustrated as a network device, the network device 120 may be another device than a network device. Although illustrated as a terminal device, the terminal device 110 may be another device than a terminal device.

[0054] In the following, for the purpose of illustration, some example embodiments are described with a terminal device 110 operating as a UE and a network device 120 operating as a base station, e.g., gNB. However, in some example embodiments, operations described in connection with a terminal device may be implemented at a network device or other device, and operations described in connection with a networkdevice may be implemented at a terminal device or other device.

[0055] In some example embodiments, a communication direction from the network device 120 to the terminal device 110 is referred to as a downlink (DL), while a communication direction from the terminal device 110 to the network device 120 is referred to as an uplink (UL). In DL, the network device 120 is a transmitting (TX) device (or a transmitter) and the terminal device 110 is a receiving (RX) device (or a receiver). In UL, the terminal device 110 is a TX device (or a transmitter) and the network device 120 is a RX device (or a receiver).

[0056] Communications in the communication environment 100 may be implemented according to any proper communication protocol(s), comprising, but not limited to, cellular communication protocols of the first generation (1G), the second generation (2G), the third generation (3G), the fourth generation (4G), the fifth generation (5G), the sixth generation (6G), and the like, wireless local network communication protocols such as Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 and the like, and / or any other protocols currently known or to be developed in the future. Moreover, the communication may utilize any proper wireless communication technology, comprising but not limited to: Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA), Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Frequency Division Duplex (FDD), Time Division Duplex (TDD), Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple (OFDM), Discrete Fourier Transform spread OFDM (DFT-s-OFDM) and / or any other technologies currently known or to be developed in the future.

[0057] 3GPP standards provide various ways for positioning (e.g., determining the position of, locating, and / or determining the location of) UEs operating in 3GPP networks. In some scenarios, UE positioning may be carried out at the network by means of sounding reference signals (SRSs) transmitted by the UE and received by multiple network nodes, including transmission-reception points (TRPs) and / or gNBs. Upon reception of the SRSs, the network device may use the RX samples together with the TX samples (which are assumed to be known) to localize the UE. The information is mainly communicated through standardized signalling.

[0058] In some other scenarios, for example, when network devices are not available or used, terminal devices themselves can help to find each other’s position, which istermed as SL positioning. If a terminal device needs to be positioned without a gNB, other UEs or PRU nearby this terminal device may be utilized for this purpose using side-link (SL) positioning reference signals (PRSs). Here, the terminal device for which the position needs to be estimated is known as a target terminal device, while the main terminal device which acts as the location management function (LMF) is termed the server terminal device or server UE. In addition, other nearby devices (e.g., UEs, PRUs) are termed anchor devices.

[0059] Currently, the UE positioning in the 3GPP communication network is performed by the co-operation between the network devices and / or terminal devices following the same wireless communication protocol, e.g., the LMF, gNBs and the UEs. However, nowadays, there are many radio frequency (RF) sources in the environment that follow other wireless communication protocols, e.g., Wi-Fi. Those RF sources may include non-3GPP RF source. If those RF sources can be utilized to assist and / or perform UE positioning, it may save the energy transmitted by the network devices, thereby improving the energy efficiency.

[0060] Unlike the positioning with network devices or terminal devices involved may follow standardized signalling, when positioning needs to be performed based on RF sources following other communication protocols, the signal transmission of those RF sources is inherently non-cooperative and thus the typical signalling may not be performed.

[0061] One challenge is that the positions of the non-3GPP RF sources may not be unknown by the 3GPP network. In case the LMF or location server knows the coordinates of the WLAN access points (via the information element, WLAN -AP -Data), those are part of the LTE Positioning Protocol (LPP) protocol.

[0062] However, if the locations of the not-known non-3GPP RF sources may be known or estimated, those sources may be used for UE positioning. When the not-known non-3GPP RF sources are used, the positioning method is mainly limited to fingerprinting of the received energy, e.g. time of flight or angle of arrival, and such methods may not be available due to unknown configuration of non-3GPP reference signals etc. Moreover, once the location of a non-3GPP RF source is estimated, how it can be utilized for UE positioning also needs to be addressed.

[0063] Another challenge relates to deployment of 3GPP specified positioning methods,namely, gNBs, TRPs and positioning anchors. It may increase the network cost to deploy enough highly synchronized TRPs for positioning. It is now further introduced PRUs (Positioning Reference Unit), which are assumed to have UE functionality with the added capability to report their known ground-truth locations to a positioning server (e.g., a location management component (LMC), LMF, or the like). While these units are designed to be positioning anchors, there may be a limited number of installed PRUs and available locations for installation will be a challenge.

[0064] In embodiments of the present disclosure, for positioning of a target terminal device supporting a wireless communication protocol, it proposes improved solutions to utilize available RF sources supporting a different wireless communication protocol to serve as positioning anchors for the terminal device positioning. For a RF source utilized in the terminal device positioning, the TX power and location of the RF source is known. Some example embodiments are provided for the estimation of the TX power and location of the RF source.

[0065] In terminal device positioning, for a respective RF source, the target terminal device which needs to be positioned perform one or more measurements on a signal received from the RF source with known location and TX power. The target terminal device may perform energy measurement on a single RF source or more than one RF source.

[0066] In some example embodiments, if location estimation is performed on the target terminal device, a respective TX power and a respective location of one or more RF sources may be provided to the target terminal device. The target terminal device may determine its location based on the measurement results on the one or more RF sources, and the respective TX power and the respective location of one or more RF sources. In such embodiments, the one or more RF sources with known locations may act as a role of anchor device for the positioning of the target terminal device. It would be appreciated that as used herein, the term “based on” includes “based at least in part on”.

[0067] In some example embodiments, if location estimation is performed at the network side, the target terminal device may transmit the measurement results on the one or more RF sources to a network device. The network device may determine a location of the target terminal device based on the measurement results on the one or more RF sources, and the respective TX power and the respective location of one or more RFsources. In such embodiments, the one or more RF sources with known locations may be treated in a similar way as the network devices that participate in the terminal device positioning.

[0068] The proposed solutions provide methods that allow positioning in an area where there are already a larger number of installed RF sources available for terminal device connectivity, such as Wi-Fi, which may not only decrease the cost for device positioning and also complements the area where the positioning methods are having limited accuracy, such as positioning accuracy is limited by the geometric dilution of precision (GDOP), lack of line-of -sight to the anchor nodes. Furthermore, the proposed solutions may also complement well the artificial intelligence / machine learning (AI / ML)-based positioning where the collected data for model training may be enhanced with the locations and TX powers of the utilized RF sources.

[0069] FIG. 2 illustrates a signaling flow 200 for estimation of a TX power and location of a RF source in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For purpose of illustration, the signaling flow 200 will be described with respect to FIG.1. The signaling flow 200 involves a plurality of terminal devices 115 and a network device 120 in FIG. 1, which may participate in estimating a TX power and location of a RF source 202.

[0070] In example embodiments of the present disclosure, a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol which is different from a second wireless communication protocol between the terminal devices 110, 115, the network devices 120, and the CN network node(s) 135 in the communication environment 100.

[0071] In some example embodiments, the second wireless communication protocol may follow the 3GPP standards, and thus the first wireless communication protocol may follow non-3GPP standards. The RF source 202 may also be referred to as a non-3GPP RF source. In some example embodiments, the first wireless communication protocol may be based on the wireless local area network (WLAN) technology, e.g., Wi-Fi. The RF source may include a WLAN AP. In some example embodiments, the first wireless communication protocol may be based on the Ultra Wideband (UWB) technology. It would be appreciated that other non-3GPP protocols may also be applicable.

[0072] Although supporting a different wireless communication protocols, a RF source may transmit energy source when it is operating. Example embodiments of the presentdisclosure propose to trigger terminal devices with known location to perform energy measurements on the RF source and determine the TX power and location of the RF source based on the energy measurement results.

[0073] In the following, the signalling between terminal devices and a RAN network device is one implementation of the process for estimating the TX power and location of the RF source. It is also possible to use centralized processing, such as an LMF, a local LMF or LMC in RAN to implement the TX power and location estimation of the RF source.

[0074] In the signaling flow 200, the network device 120 transmits (210), to a plurality of terminal devices 115 with known locations, a suspend indication of data transmission and the number of measurements (X) needed to be performed for the RF source 202.

[0075] For a respective one of the plurality of terminal devices 115, upon reception (215) of the suspend indication of data transmission, the terminal device 115 may suspend its data transmission. In some example embodiments, the suspend indication may indicate the terminal device 115 to suspend any data transmission for a certain time duration, so that terminal device 115 may measure the energy received from the RF source 202 alone. In some example embodiments, the terminal device 115 may be configured with a muting pattern for the energy measurements.

[0076] The accuracy of the RF source localization may depend on how well the terminal device 115 can estimate the energy received from the RF source alone. If the terminal device 115 makes other transmissions, it may cause errors in the energy estimation. Hence, the network device 120 may first indicate to the terminal device 115 to suspend other normal data transmissions. In some example embodiments, although the data transmission is suspended, the terminal device 115 may still monitor control channels, such as paging during the paging occasions.

[0077] In some example embodiments, the value of K may be equal to or larger than one. The needed number (X) of measurements from the terminal device may be determined based on the required accuracy level of TX power and location estimation for the RF source. As will be described below, a larger number of measurement results may alleviate the error introduced in the estimation of the TX power and location. In some example embodiments, the value of K may be determined further based on the information known about a terminal device from previous transmissions regarding howfrequent the energy received may be sampled and the time duration Ttotai. In some example embodiments, the value of K may be configured as the same for the plurality of terminal devices 115, or may be different among the plurality of terminal devices 115.

[0078] With the data transmission suspended, a terminal device 115 performs (220) the number of measurements (K) for a signal energy received by the terminal device 115 from the RF source 202, to obtain the number of (K) measurement results for the RF source 202. As the RF source 202 may perform wireless energy transmission, a terminal device 115 may receive energy (e.g. received signal strength of ordinary reference signals and / or data traffic not configured for the terminal device) from the RF source 202.

[0079] In some example embodiments, the terminal device 115 may be indicated to measure the energy received from the RF source 202 for the certain time duration Ttotai. The terminal device 115 may receive the signal energy for one or more time instants from the RF source 202. In some example embodiments, the terminal device 115 may keeps track of the energies received for different time instants, i.e., K measurements. Once the terminal device 115 has gathered enough energy statistics, i.e., K measurements, it may transmit the measurement results to the network device 120. The transmitted measurement results may be of the formERF... , (tK, ERF K^, i.e., energy received from the RF source 202 for the K measurements, where tj represents the i-th timestamp, and ERFi represents the i-th energy measurement result for the RF source 202.

[0080] The terminal device 115 transmits (225) the number of (K) measurement results to the network device 120. The network device 120 receives (230), from the plurality of terminal devices 115, the number of (K) measurement results for a signal energy received by the terminal device 115 from the RF source 202, and transmits (235), to the plurality of terminal devices 115, a resume indication of data transmission. Since the terminal devices 115 stop other transmissions until now, the network device 120 may indicate to the terminal devices 115 to resume their normal operations because the energy statistics are already obtained. The plurality of terminal devices 115 receive (240) the resume indication and may resume to their normal operations.

[0081] The time duration of the energy measurement on the RF source 202 may be controlled by initialize a timer at 205. The energy measurement may be stopped when the timer expires at 245. The time Ttotaielapsed for the data transmission suspension at a terminal device 115 may be given as below:Ttotal - +KTs +T4 + (1) where represents the time duration of transmission of the suspend indication, Tsis the sampling time of the energy statistics of a terminal device 115, T4represents the time duration of transmission the measurement results to the network device 120, and T5represents the time duration of transmission of the resume indication.

[0082] It would be appreciated, the energy measurement performed by the plurality of terminal devices 115 may be performed in any order, either in parallel or sequentially. In some example embodiments, the network device 120 may transmit the suspend indication and the resume indication to a terminal devices 115 irrespectively of other terminal devices.

[0083] With the measurement results received from the respective terminal devices 115, the network device 120 may estimate the RF fingerprint using the measurement results. The network device 120 performs (250) estimation of a transmit power and a location of the RF source 202 based on the received measurement results for the RF source 202 and the known locations of the respective terminal devices 115.

[0084] In some example embodiments, instead of calculating the transmit power and the location of the RF source 202 itself, the network device 120 may transmit, to a core network node, the number of measurement results received from the respective terminal devices 115 and the locations of the respective terminal devices 115. In some example embodiments, the core network node may include a core network node responsible for a location function, such as a LMF or a SeMF. The network device 120 may receive, from the core network node, the transmit power and the location of the at least one RF source 202.

[0085] In some example embodiments, the estimation of the transmit power and location of a RF source 202 may be triggered by the core network node. For example, the core network node may transmit a request to the network device 120 which may indicate a plurality of terminal devices 115 to perform the energy measurements on the RF source 202.

[0086] FIG. 3 illustrates a flowchart of a process 300 for determining a TX power and location of a RF source 202 based on energy measurement results in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. In some example embodiments,the process 300 may be implemented at the network device 120 (e.g., gNB or TRP). In some example embodiments, the process 300 may be alternatively implemented at a core network node responsible for a location function, such as a LMF, LMC, or a SeMF. In the following, for purpose of discussion only, the process 300 is described from the perspective of the network device 120.

[0087] At block 310, the network device 120 receives the measurement results from a respective one of the plurality of terminal devices 115, e.g., the n-th terminal device 115.

[0088] The energy received by a terminal device 115 from the RF source 202 for the kthmeasurement can be written asFP(2)-4jrr2Aeff+ ek (2)

[0089] It is assumed that the RF source 202 has a constant TX power P and a radius r with respect to a certain terminal device 115. The radius r may represent the distance between the RF source 202 and the certain terminal device 115. Here, ekrepresents the error between the actual energy received when compared to the model for the kthmeasurement and Ae^ is the effective antenna aperture of the terminal device.

[0090] At block 320, the network device 120 determines, based on the K measurement results received from the n-th terminal device 115, a relative magnitude relation for the n-th terminal device 115 between the transmit power of the RF source 202, and a distance between the RF source 202 and the n-th terminal device 115. On the basis of Equation p(2), the relative magnitude relation may be represented as an estimate of — for the n-th terminal device 115 as follows:£=4TT XLiERF,k(3)r2AeffK

[0091] It can be seen from Equation (3) that an average of the K measurement results may be calculated to minimize the error. Thus, a larger value of K may further reduce the error.p

[0092] The relative magnitude relations, — , may be determined for the plurality of terminal devices 115 using their respective measurement results on the RF source 202. Then the network device 120 may determine the TX power and the location of the RFpsource 202 based on the plurality of relative magnitude relations — .

[0093] In some example embodiments, the number of terminal devices 115 among the plurality of terminal devices 115 may be determined based on a positioning requirement for the RF source 202.

[0094] In an example embodiment, if the positioning requirement for the RF source 202 indicates a location in two-dimensional (2D) coordinates (w, q), the number of terminal devices 115 may be equal to or larger than four, because there may be three parameters to be solved, i.e., w, q and the TX power P. In an example embodiment, if positioning requirement of the RF source 202 indicates a location in 3D coordinates (w, q, z) , measurements from an additional terminal device 115 may be needed. Thus, the number of terminal devices 115 may be equal to or larger than five, because there may be three parameters to be solved, i.e., w, q, z and the TX power P.

[0095] In the following, the example embodiment for 2-D co-ordinates is shown below, but it can easily be extended to the 3-D case.

[0096] Denoting the radius from the nttlterminal device 115 to the RF source 202 as rn, the followings may be determined from the measurement results of four terminal devices 115:P= ar, (4a)P— = a2, (4b)FTP— = a3, (4c)r3P= a4, (4d).r4p

[0097] At block 330, after determining — for all the considered terminal devices, the network device 120 writes equations forbased on the coordinates of the RF source 202 and the known coordinates of the terminal devices 115.

[0098] Denoting the 2-D coordinates of the RF source 202 as (w, q) and the 2-D coordinates of the nttlterminal device as (x„, yn), which are assumed to be known by the network device 120, an expression may be written for r as:r2 = (w - xj2+ (q - yj2, (5a)r2 = (w - x2)2+ (q - y2)2, (5b)r2 = (w - X3+ (q - y3)2, (5c)r4= (w — x4)2+ (q — y4)2. (5d)

[0099] Then, substituting from Equations (4a)-(4d), Equations (5a)-(5d) may be rewritten asP— = (w -%1)2+ (q - y4)2, (6a)a4— = (w- x2+ (q - y )2, (6b)a2P— = (w - x3)2+ (q - y3)2, (6c)a3P— = (w — x4)2+ (q — y4)2. (6d)a4

[0100] At block 340, the network device 120 solves the equations to determine the TX power and the location of the RF source 202. Hence, there are three unknown parameters (P, w, q) and four equations (6a)-(6d), which can be used to localize the 2-D coordinates as well as TX power P of the RF source 202.

[0101] It would be appreciated that the process 300 is merely described as an example of how the location and TX power of the RF source 202 are calculated based on the measurement results of the terminal devices 115 with known locations. It would be appropriated that there would be various other methods to model and calculate the location and TX power of the RF source 202. In those methods, the RF source 202 is considered as a target with unknown location, and multiple devices with known locations may be configured to measure the signal received from such a RF source 202. Although the RF source supports a different wireless communication protocol, the example embodiments of the location and TX power estimation requires no signaling cooperations from the RF source to estimate its location and TX power estimation.

[0102] It would also be appreciated that the signaling flow 200 and the process 300 may be repeated to determine the locations and TX powers of multiple RF sources in the environment.

[0103] In example embodiments of the present disclosure, the estimated locations and TX powers of the RF sources may be utilized for positioning of a target terminal device in the communication network that supports a different wireless communication protocol from that supported by the RF source. Depending on whether the location estimation is performed at the target terminal device side or at the network side, different signalingflows are provided in FIG. 4 and FIG. 5.

[0104] FIG. 4 illustrates a signaling flow 400 for re-establishment measurement in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. In the example embodiments of FIG. 4, the location estimation is performed at a terminal device. For purpose of illustration, the signaling flow 400 will be described with respect to FIG. 1. As illustrated in FIG. 4, the signaling flow 400 involves a terminal device 110 to be positioned (also referred to as a target terminal device), a terminal device 115-1 which operates a server for positioning of the terminal device 110 (also referred to as a server terminal device), and the network device 120 in FIG. 1. Further, the signaling flow 400 involves one or more RF sources 202 with respective TX power(s) and location(s) estimated.

[0105] Depending on the number of RF sources used and the positioning requirement of the terminal device 110, in some example embodiments, one or more anchor devices with known locations may be involved in the singling flow 400 for positioning of the terminal device 110. The anchor devices may include the terminal devices 115-2, 115-3, 115-4, and / or one or more PRUs 116 in the environment 100.

[0106] In the signaling flow 400, the terminal device 115-1 transmits (415), to the terminal device 110 to be positioned, first information indicating a respective TX power and a respective location of at least one RF source 202. In some example embodiments, the RF source(s) 202 selected for the positioning of the terminal device 110 may be determined as locating in vicinity of the terminal device 110, to ensure that the terminal device 110 may receive signal energy from the RF source(s) 202. For example, if the terminal device 110 is within a building, then the RF source(s) 202 located within the building may be selected for the terminal device 110.

[0107] In some example embodiments, the information exchanged between the terminal device 115-1 and the terminal device 110 may be performed based on the sidelink communication. In some example embodiments, the sidelink between the terminal device 115-1 and the terminal device 110 may be used for sidelink positioning, where one or more terminal devices or PRUs may be sidelink positioning anchors.

[0108] In some example embodiments, the terminal device 115-1 may receive (410), from the network device 120, the first information indicating the respective TX power and the respective location of the at least one RF source 202. The network device 120may obtain a respective TX power and a respective location of the at least one RF source 202 and may transmit (405), to the terminal device 115-1, the first information indicating the respective TX power and the respective location of the at least one RF source 202. As discussed above, the network device 120 may determine the respective TX power and the respective location of the at least one RF source 202 based on the measurement results received from some terminal devices with known locations, or may receive the respective TX power and the respective location of the at least one RF source 202 from a core network node, e.g., LMF, LMC, SeMF, etc.

[0109] The terminal device 110 receives (420) from the terminal device 115-1, first information indicating a respective TX power and a respective location of at least one RF source 202. For a respective one of the at least one RF source 202, the terminal device 110 performs (440) at least one measurement on a signal energy received from the RF source 202, to obtain at least one measurement result for the RF source 202.

[0110] In some example embodiments, the terminal device 115-1 may further transmit (425) to the terminal device 110, second information indicating the number of measurements (L) to be performed for a respective one of the at least one RF source 202. The value of L may be equal to or larger than one.

[0111] In some example embodiments, the value of L may be larger than one since there are some expected inaccuracies when measuring of the RF source location, e.g. by fingerprinting. Other inaccuracies and unknowns (group delays, clock drifts, Doppler, and the like) may also impact the number of needed energy measurements.

[0112] In some example embodiments, the value of L may be determined based on a requirement on an accuracy level of an estimate of a location of the terminal device 110. A larger number of measurement results may alleviate the error introduced in the estimation of the location of the terminal device 110. Alternatively, or in addition, the value of L may be determined based on a geometry of the respective location of the at least one RF source 202. For example, if a RF source 202 is in a line-of-sight scenario with respect to the terminal device 110, less measurements may be needed when compared to the non-line-of-sight scenario.

[0113] Alternatively, or in addition, the value of L may be determined based on a requirement on updating or maintaining a respective measurement result for the at least one RF source 202. For instance, if the value of L is too large, it may require more storageto update or maintain the measurement result for the RF source(s) 202 as compared to the case when L is low. As such, the value of L may be changed based on the RF fingerprinting database.

[0114] In some examples, the energy measurements at the terminal device may be performed in a periodic manner. Hence, the process of defining the number of measurements may be performed iteratively. In some example embodiments, the value of L may be determined as the same for different RF sources, or may be determined as different among the different RF sources.

[0115] The terminal device 110 may receive (430) from the terminal device 115-1, the second information indicating the number of measurements (L) to be performed for a respective one of the at least one RF source 202, and may thus measure the energy received from the RF source 202 for L measurements, to obtain L measurement results for the RF source 202. In some example embodiments, the number of measurements to be performed for a RF source may be pre-configured for the terminal device 110.

[0116] In some example embodiments, in order to make correct measurements on the received energy, the terminal device 110 may suspend its data transmission when performing energy measurement on a RF source 202. In some example embodiments, the terminal device 110 may not need to suspend its data transmission when performing the energy measurement.

[0117] The energy ERFI received by the terminal device 110 due to the wireless energy transmission of a RF source 202 for the lttlmeasurement may be written as follows (similar to Equation (2)):P (7)ERF’l~ 4^Aeff+ eiwhere d is the distance between the terminal device 110 and the RF source 202, P is the TX power of the RF source 202.

[0118] The terminal device 110 performs (465) location estimation to determine its location based on the respective at least one measurement result and the respective TX power and location of the at least one RF source 202.

[0119] For a respective one of the at least one RF source 202, the terminal device 110 determines, based on the corresponding at least one measurement result and the TX powerof the RF source 202, a relative positioning relation between the terminal device 110 and the RF source 202. The relative positioning relation may be represented by an estimate of a distance d between the terminal device 110 and the RF source 202.

[0120] The estimate of the distance d may be calculated from above Equation (7) based on the TX power of the RF source 202 and the lttlmeasurement result ERFI. In some example embodiments, the terminal device 110 may then use the L measurement results for a RF source 202 to minimize the error and determine an estimate for d2, which may be given as1 _ 4TT (8)d2~ PAeffL

[0121] It can be seen from Equation (8) that an average of the L measurement results may be calculated to minimize the error.

[0122] The terminal device 110 further determine an estimate of a location of the terminal device 110 based on the respective location of the at least one RF source 202 and the respective relative positioning relation between the terminal device 110 and the at least one RF source 202.

[0123] In some example embodiments, if there are multiple RF sources 202 with energy measured, the terminal device 110 may determine the estimate of d2for the multiple RF source 220 based on the corresponding measurement results for the respective RF sources. As the locations of the RF sources 202 are known, by defining the estimate for the distance between the same terminal device 110 to the different RF sources 202, the terminal device 110 may infer its estimated location.

[0124] In some example embodiments, the at least one RF source with known location may considered as a positioning anchor for the target terminal device. To successfully localize the terminal device 110, the total number of positioning anchors for location estimation of the terminal device 110 may be determined based on a positioning requirement for the terminal device 110. In an example embodiment, if the positioning requirement for the terminal device 110 indicates a location in two-dimensional (4D) coordinates (x, y), the number of positioning anchors may be equal to or larger than four. In an example embodiment, if positioning requirement of the terminal device 110 indicates a location in 3D coordinates (x, y, z), then the number of positioning anchorsmay be equal to or larger than five.

[0125] In some example embodiments, the number of the at least one anchor device may be determined based on the number of the at least one RF source 202. Since the RF source(s) 202 is also utilized for positioning of the terminal device 110, the required number of anchor devices may be reduced. For example, if at least four positioning anchors are needed to localize the terminal device 110 in 2D coordinates, the required number of anchor devices may be three if one RF source 220 is utilized (or less anchor devices if there are multiple RF sources 202). If at least five positioning anchors are needed, then the required number of anchor devices may be four or less.

[0126] In some example embodiments, if the number of RF sources 202 to be measured is less then the required number of positioning anchors for the terminal device 110, the terminal device 110 may further be indicated to perform measurement(s) on one or more anchor devices (which may not be the RF source). The anchor devices may follow the same wireless communication protocol as the terminal device 110 because signaling needs to be exchanged between the terminal device 110 and the anchor devices. Furthermore, the locations of the anchor devices may be already known.

[0127] In some cases, the terminal device 110 may be indicated by the terminal device 115-1 to perform signal transmission to at least one anchor device, e.g., the terminal devices 115-2, 115-3, 115-4, and / or one or more PRUs 116. In the signaling flow 400, the terminal device 110 may receive (420) from the terminal device 115-1, third information indicating the respective location of the at least one anchor device. That is, the terminal device 115-1, as the server for the positioning of the terminal device 110, may indicate that whether the terminal device 110 needs to perform transmission to an anchor device(s), and the number of anchor devices for signal transmission.

[0128] The terminal device 110 may perform (445) at least one transmission of a PRS to at least one anchor device. In some examples, the communication between the terminal device 110 and the anchor device(s) may be based on the SL communication, and the PRS may include SL-PRS. In some examples, for each anchor device, the terminal device 110 may transmit the PRS for one or more times.

[0129] The anchor device(s), e.g., the terminal devices 115-2, 115-3, 115-4, and / or one or more PRUs 116, may measure (450) the PRS received from the terminal device 110, and each transmit (455) at least one measurement result on the PRS. The terminal device110 may receive (460) from the at least one anchor device, the at least one measurement result on the PRS. In this case, the terminal device 110 may determine the estimate of its location further based on a respective location of the at least one anchor device and the reception information on the at least one measurement result from the anchor device(s). In some example embodiments, the reception information may include the measurement result of the transmitted PRS, and / or reception of PRS transmitted by the anchor device for round-trip-time measurement.

[0130] As indicated above, with the utilization of the RF source(s) 202, the required number of anchor devices may be reduced. As a result, the PRS transmission and reception as well as the PRS measurements may be reduced, and resources and power consumption may be saved as compared to the positioning scenario where no RF source(s) is utilized.

[0131] In some example embodiments, the terminal device 110 may initiate the SL-PRS process once the measurements on the RF source(s) 202 have been taken. Specifically, in accordance with a determination that completion of the respective at least one measurement on the signal energy received from the at least one RF source 202, the terminal device 110 may initiate the transmission of the PRS to the at least one anchor device.

[0132] After the terminal device 110 receives the at least one measurement result on the PRS and the measurement results on the at least one RF source 202, the terminal device may utilize those measurement results to estimate its own location. Since the terminal device 110 already knows the location and TX power of the RF source(s), it may consider the RF source(s) to be similar to an anchor device(s) with known location(s). In that case, the terminal device 110 may have enough information (from the anchor device(s) and the RF source(s)) to do its own position estimation. Various positioning methods may be applied to deduce the location coordinates of the terminal device 110, which are not limited in the scope of the present disclosure.

[0133] One of the possible implementations is to calculate the estimate for d2(d is the distance or range between the terminal device 110 and a RF source or an anchor device) for all the considered RF source(s) and anchor device(s). As the locations of the considered RF source(s) and anchor device(s) are known, with the estimate for d2, the terminal device 110 may solve the 2D or 3D coordinates of its location, e.g., byconstructing similar equations as those in Equations (5a)-(5d), where r is replaced by d , the coordinates (w, q) of the RF source are replaced by the coordinates of the terminal device 110, and the known coordinates of the terminal devices 115 are replaced by the known coordinates of the considered RF source(s) and anchor device(s).

[0134] It would be appreciated that the terminal device 110 may apply any other position estimation methods (e.g., the AI / ME-based positioning methods), either available currently or to be developed in the further, to calculate its location from the measurement results of the RF source(s) (and anchor device(s) if any) as well as the respective TX power and location of the RF source(s) (and locations of the anchor device(s) if any).

[0135] FIG. 5 illustrates a signaling flow 500 for terminal device positioning using a RF source 202(s) in accordance with some other example embodiments of the present disclosure. In the example embodiments of FIG. 5, the location estimation is performed at a network device. For purpose of illustration, the signaling flow 500 involves a terminal device 110 to be positioned (also referred to as a target terminal device), a network device 120-1 which is currently serving the terminal device 110 and thus may be referred to as a serving network device, and one or more RF sources 202 with respective TX power(s) and location(s) estimated.

[0136] Depending on the number of RF sources used and the positioning requirement of the terminal device 110, in some example embodiments, one or more additional network devices, e.g., the network devices 120-2, 120-3 and / or others may be involved in the singling flow 500 for positioning of the terminal device 110.

[0137] In the signaling flow, the network device 120-1 transmits (505) to a terminal device 110 to be positioned, an indication for performing energy measurement on at least one RF source 202. In some example embodiments, the RF source(s) 202 selected for the positioning of the terminal device 110 may be determined as locating in vicinity of the terminal device 110, to ensure that the terminal device 110 may receive signal energy from the RF source(s) 202. For example, if the terminal device 110 is within a building, then the RF source(s) 202 located within the building may be selected for the terminal device 110.

[0138] The terminal device 110 receives (510) from the network device 120-1, the indication for performing energy measurement and performs the energy measurement.For a respective one of the at least one RF source 202, the terminal device 110 performs (525) at least one measurement on a signal energy received from the RF source 202, to obtain at least one measurement result for the RF source 202.

[0139] In some example embodiments, the indication for performing energy measurement may further include information indicating the needed number of measurements (L) to be performed for a respective one of the at least one RF source 202. For a respective one of the at least one RF source 202, the terminal device 110 may perform the number of measurements on a signal energy received from the RF source 202, to obtain corresponding (L) measurement results for the RF source 202.

[0140] In some example embodiments, in order to make correct measurements on the received energy, the terminal device 110 may suspend its data transmission when performing energy measurement on a RF source 202. In some example embodiments, the terminal device 110 may not need to suspend its data transmission when performing the energy measurement.

[0141] In some example embodiments, similarly to the embodiments as described with reference to the signaling flow 400, the number of measurements (L) may be based on the requirement on an accuracy level of an estimate of a location of the terminal device 110, a geometry of the respective location of the at least one RF source 202, and / or a requirement on updating or maintaining a respective measurement result for the at least one RF source 202. The details of the determination of the value of L may not be repeated again. The terminal device 110 may measure each of the RF source 202 to obtain the required number of measurement results.

[0142] The terminal device 110 transmits (530) to the network device 120-1, respective at least one measurement result for the at least one RF source 202. The network device 120 receives (535), from the terminal device 110, respective at least one measurement result on a signal energy received from the at least one RF source 202 and determine a location of the terminal device 110 based on the received at least one measurement result and the known corresponding location and TX power of the at least one RF source.

[0143] In some example embodiments, the network device 120-1 may transmit, to a core network node (e.g., LMF or SeMF), the received respective at least one measurement result on a signal energy received from the at least one RF source 202, for location estimation of the terminal device 110 at the core network node. In some exampleembodiments, the network device 120-1 or the core network node may perform the location estimation of the terminal device 110 in a similar way as by the terminal device 115-1.

[0144] As discussed above with reference to the signaling flow 400, depending on the positioning requirement of the terminal device 110, the required number of positioning anchors may be at least four for 2D coordinates or at least five for 3D coordinates. If the number of RF source(s) 202 measured by the terminal device 110 is less than the required number of positioning anchors, in some example embodiments of the signaling flow 500, the terminal device 110 may further perform at least one transmission of an SRS to at least one network device. The SRS may also be referred to as UL SRS.

[0145] In some example embodiments, the number of the at least one network device may be determined based on the number of the at least one RF source 202 and a positioning requirement for the terminal device 110. Assuming that the required number of positioning anchors is four, the terminal device 110 may transmit SRS to three network devices (if one RF source 202 is measured) or less network devices (if multiple RF source 202 are measured). Assuming that the required number of positioning anchors is five, the terminal device 110 may transmit SRS to four network devices (if one RF source 202 is measured) or less network devices (if multiple RF source 202 are measured).

[0146] The at least one network device may include the network device 120-1 which may be the serving network device for the terminal device 110. In some examples, the at least one network device may additionally or alternatively include one or more neighbor network devices, such as the network devices 120-2, 120-3, etc. In some example embodiments, the terminal device 110 may receive, from the network device 120-1, information indicating the number of the at least one network device to which the SRS is to be transmitted. As shown in FIG. 5, in some example embodiments, the terminal device 110 may perform (540) at least one SRS transmission to the network device 120-1, and may perform (550) at least one SRS transmission to the network devices 120-2, 120-3, etc.

[0147] With the utilization of the RF source(s) 202, a smaller number of network devices may be reduced for SRS transmission. Hence, utilizing the RF source results in reducing the energy used by the network devices and terminal device, improving the energy efficiency.

[0148] At the network side, the network device 120-1 may receive (545) the SRS from the terminal device 110, and obtain the measurement result on the SRS reception. In some cases, the network device 120-1 may further receive the measurement result(s) on the SRS reception (555) at the one or more network devices 120-2, 120-3, etc. The network device 120-1 may coordinate with the one or more network devices 120-2, 120-3, etc., to perform (560) location estimation of the terminal device 110.

[0149] In some example embodiments, if the location estimation of the terminal device 110 is performed at the core network node, the network device 120-1 (and the network devices 120-2, 120-3, etc.) may transmit their measurement results on the SRS to the core network node.

[0150] The network device 120-1 or the core network node may determine the location of the terminal device 110 based on the energy measurement results and the corresponding TX power and location for the at least one RF source 202, as well as the measurement result(s) on the SRS reception and the known locations of the network devices 120-1, 120-2, and / or 120-3, etc. The location estimation of the terminal device 110 may be performed in a similar way when only network devices are utilized for positioning of the terminal device 110.

[0151] In an example embodiments, for a respective one of the at least one RF source 202, the network device 120-1 or the core network node may determine, based on the corresponding at least one measurement result and the TX power of the RF source 202, a relative positioning relation between the terminal device 110 and the RF source 202, e.g., an estimate for d2according to Equation (8). Similarly, the network device 120-1 or the core network node may determine an estimate for d2( which represents a distance from the terminal device 110 to a network device) based on the measurement results of the SRS by the corresponding network device. As the locations of the considered RF source(s) and network device(s) are known, with the estimate for d2, the terminal device 110 may solve the 2D or 3D coordinates of its location, e.g., by constructing similar equations as those in Equations (5a)-(5d), where r is replaced by d , the coordinates (w, q) of the RF source are replaced by the coordinates of the terminal device 110, and the known coordinates of the terminal devices 115 are replaced by the known coordinates of the considered RF source(s) and anchor device(s).

[0152] The above calculation of the location is provided merely as an example. It wouldbe appreciated that the network device or the core network node may apply any other position estimation methods, either available currently or to be developed in the further, to calculate its location from the measurement results of the RF source(s) (and network device(s) if any) as well as the respective TX power and location of the RF source(s) (and locations of the network device(s) if any).

[0153] According to the above example embodiments, the proposed positioning solutions allow in (indoor) areas where the RF sources (e.g., WLAN access points) are installed for user device connectivity, such as Wi-Fi. In such environments, positioning based on such RF sources may not require additional hardware since many environments may have already been equipped with the RF sources (e.g., a variety of the indoor environments may provide Wi-Fi connectivity). Otherwise deploying positioning hardware manually may be costly and time-consuming for indoor positioning.

[0154] Further, the positioning solutions proposed in the example embodiments may complement the areas where the 3GPP positioning methods are having limited accuracy, such as positioning accuracy is limited by the GDOP, lack of line-of -sight to the anchor nodes. The positioning solutions proposed in the example embodiments may also complement well the AI / ML based positioning where the collected data for model training can be enhanced with the locations and TX powers of the RF sources.

[0155] FIG. 6A 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 first apparatus may be or may be included in the terminal device 110 or any other target terminal device to be positioned in FIG. 1. The method 600 will be described from the perspective of the first apparatus.

[0156] At block 610, the first apparatus receives, from a second apparatus, first information indicating a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol which is different from a second wireless communication protocol between the first apparatus and the second apparatus.

[0157] At block 620, for a respective one of the at least one RF source, the first apparatus performs at least one measurement on a signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain at least one measurement result for the RF source.

[0158] At block 630, for a respective one of the at least one RF source, the first apparatus determines, based on the corresponding at least one measurement result and the transmit power of the RF source, a relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and the RF source.

[0159] At block 640, the first apparatus determines an estimate of a location of the first apparatus based on the respective location of the at least one RF source and the respective relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and the at least one RF source.

[0160] In some example embodiments, the method 600 further comprises: receiving, from the second apparatus, second information indicating a first number of measurements to be performed for a respective one of the at least one RF source. In some example embodiments, performing the at least one measurement comprises: for a respective one of the at least one RF source, performing the first number of measurements on the signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain the first number of corresponding measurement results for the RF source.

[0161] In some example embodiments, the method 600 further comprises: performing at least one transmission of a positioning reference signal to at least one anchor device; and receiving, from the at least one anchor device, at least one measurement result on the positioning reference signal. In some example embodiments, determining the estimate of the location of the first apparatus comprises: determining the estimate of the location of the first apparatus further based on a respective location of the at least one anchor device and the at least one measurement result on the positioning reference signal.

[0162] In some example embodiments, the method 600 further comprises: in accordance with a determination that completion of the respective at least one measurement on the signal energy received from the at least one RF source, initiating the at least one transmission of the positioning reference signal to the at least one anchor device.

[0163] In some example embodiments, the number of the at least one anchor device is determined based on the number of the at least one RF source and a positioning requirement for the first apparatus.

[0164] In some example embodiments, the method 600 further comprises: receiving, from the second apparatus, third information indicating the respective location of the atleast one anchor device.

[0165] In some example embodiments, a relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and a RF source is represented by an estimate of a distance between the first apparatus and the RF source.

[0166] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus is or is comprised in a target terminal device to be positioned. In some example embodiments, the second apparatus is or is comprised in a terminal device operating as a server for positioning of the target terminal device. In some example embodiments, the at least one RF source comprises at least one wireless local area network, WLAN, access point.

[0167] FIG. 6B shows a flowchart of an example method 602 implemented at a second apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the second apparatus may be or may be included in the terminal device 115-1 or any other terminal device that operates as a server for positioning of a terminal device. The method 602 will be described from the perspective of the second apparatus.

[0168] At block 622, the second apparatus transmits, to a target terminal device to be positioned, first information indicating a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source in vicinity of the target terminal device, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the second apparatus and the target terminal device.

[0169] In some example embodiments, at block 612, the second apparatus may receive, from a network device, information indicating the respective transmit power and the respective location of the at least one RF source.

[0170] In some example embodiments, the method 602 further comprises: transmitting, to the target terminal device, second information indicating a first number of measurements to be performed for a respective one of the at least one RF source.

[0171] In some example embodiments, the method 602 further comprises: determining the first number of measurements based on at least one of the following: a requirement on an accuracy level of an estimate of a location of the target terminal device, a geometry of the respective location of the at least one RF source, or a requirement on updating ormaintaining a respective measurement result for the at least one RF source.

[0172] In some example embodiments, the method 602 further comprises: transmitting, to the target terminal device, third information indicating a respective location of at least one anchor device. In some example embodiments, the number of the at least one anchor device is determined based on the number of the at least one RF source and a positioning requirement for the target terminal device.

[0173] In some example embodiments, the at least one RF source comprises at least one wireless local area network, WLAN, access point.

[0174] FIG. 6C shows a flowchart of an example method 604 implemented at a third apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the third apparatus may be or may be included in a network device 120 in FIG. 1. The method 604 will be described from the perspective of the third apparatus.

[0175] At block 614, the third apparatus obtains a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol supported by the third apparatus.

[0176] At block 624, the third apparatus transmits, to a terminal device operating as a server for positioning of a target terminal device to be positioned, first information indicating the respective transmit power and the respective location of the at least one RF source.

[0177] In some example embodiments, the method 604 further comprises: for a respective one of the at least one RF source, transmitting, to a plurality of terminal devices with known locations, a suspend indication of data transmission and fourth information indicating a second number of measurements to be performed for the RF source; for a respective one of the plurality of terminal devices, receiving, from the plurality of terminal devices, the second number of measurement results for a signal energy received by the terminal device from the RF source; and transmitting, to the plurality of terminal devices, a resume indication of data transmission.

[0178] In some example embodiments, the method 604 further comprises: for a respective one of the at least one RF source, determining a transmit power and a locationof the RF source based on the second number of measurement results received from the respective terminal devices and the locations of the respective terminal devices. In some example embodiments the method 604 further comprises: for a respective one of the at least one RF source, transmitting, to a core network node, the second number of measurement results received from the respective terminal devices and the locations of the respective terminal devices. The obtaining of the transmit power and the location of the at least one RF source comprises receiving, from the core network node, the transmit power and the location of the at least one RF source.

[0179] In some example embodiments, the number of terminal devices among the plurality of terminal devices is determined based on a positioning requirement for the RF source.

[0180] In some example embodiments, the positioning requirement for the RF source indicates a location in two-dimensional coordinates, and the number of terminal devices among the plurality of terminal devices is equal to or larger than four. In some example embodiments, the positioning requirement of the RF source indicates a location in three-dimensional coordinates, and the number of terminal devices among the plurality of terminal devices is equal to or larger than five.

[0181] In some example embodiments, determining the transmit power and the location of the RF source comprises: for a respective one of the plurality of terminal devices, determining, based on the second number of measurement results received from the terminal device, a relative magnitude relation between the transmit power of the RF source, and a distance between the RF source and the terminal device; and determining the transmit power and the location of the RF source based on a plurality of relative magnitude relations determined for the plurality of terminal devices.

[0182] In some example embodiments, the third apparatus is or is comprised in a network device.

[0183] In some example embodiments, a first apparatus capable of performing any of the method 600 (for example, the terminal device 110 or any other target terminal device to be positioned 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 terminal device 110 or any other target terminaldevice to be positioned in FIG. 1.

[0184] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises means for receiving, from a second apparatus, first information indicating a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol which is different from a second wireless communication protocol between the first apparatus and the second apparatus; means for, for a respective one of the at least one RF source, performing at least one measurement on a signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain at least one measurement result for the RF source; means for, for a respective one of the at least one RF source, determining, based on the corresponding at least one measurement result and the transmit power of the RF source, a relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and the RF source; and means for determining an estimate of a location of the first apparatus based on the respective location of the at least one RF source and the respective relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and the at least one RF source.

[0185] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from the second apparatus, second information indicating a first number of measurements to be performed for a respective one of the at least one RF source; and wherein the means for performing the at least one measurement comprises: means for, for a respective one of the at least one RF source, performing the first number of measurements on the signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain the first number of corresponding measurement results for the RF source.

[0186] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for performing at least one transmission of a positioning reference signal to at least one anchor device; and means for receiving, from the at least one anchor device, at least one measurement result on the positioning reference signal; and the means for determining the estimate of the location of the first apparatus comprises: means for determining the estimate of the location of the first apparatus further based on a respective location of the at least one anchor device and the at least one measurement result on the positioning reference signal.

[0187] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for in accordance with a determination that completion of the respective at least onemeasurement on the signal energy received from the at least one RF source, initiating the at least one transmission of the positioning reference signal to the at least one anchor device.

[0188] In some example embodiments, the number of the at least one anchor device is determined based on the number of the at least one RF source and a positioning requirement for the first apparatus.

[0189] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from the second apparatus, third information indicating the respective location of the at least one anchor device.

[0190] In some example embodiments, a relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and a RF source is represented by an estimate of a distance between the first apparatus and the RF source.

[0191] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus is or is comprised in a target terminal device to be positioned, and / or wherein the second apparatus is or is comprised in a terminal device operating as a server for positioning of the target terminal device, and / or wherein the at least one RF source comprises at least one wireless local area network, WLAN, access point.

[0192] In some example embodiments, a second apparatus capable of performing any of the method 602 (for example, the terminal device 115-1 or any other terminal device that operates as a server for positioning of a terminal device in FIG. 1) may comprise means for performing the respective operations of the method 602. 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 terminal device 115-1 or any other terminal device that operates as a server for positioning of a terminal device in FIG. 1.

[0193] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus comprises means for transmitting, to a target terminal device to be positioned, first information indicating a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source in vicinity of the target terminal device, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the second apparatus and the target terminal device.

[0194] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from a network device, information indicating the respective transmit power and the respective location of the at least one RF source.

[0195] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for transmitting, to the target terminal device, second information indicating a first number of measurements to be performed for a respective one of the at least one RF source.

[0196] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for determining the first number of measurements based on at least one of the following: a requirement on an accuracy level of an estimate of a location of the target terminal device, a geometry of the respective location of the at least one RF source, or a requirement on updating or maintaining a respective measurement result for the at least one RF source.

[0197] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for transmitting, to the target terminal device, third information indicating a respective location of at least one anchor device. In some example embodiments, the number of the at least one anchor device is determined based on the number of the at least one RF source and a positioning requirement for the target terminal device.

[0198] In some example embodiments, the at least one RF source comprises at least one wireless local area network, WLAN, access point.

[0199] In some example embodiments, a third apparatus capable of performing any of the method 604 (for example, the network device 120 in FIG. 1]) may comprise means for performing the respective operations of the method 604. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module. The third apparatus may be implemented as or included in the network device 120 in FIG. 1.

[0200] In some example embodiments, the third apparatus comprises means for obtaining a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol supported by the third apparatus; and means for transmitting, to a terminal device operating as a server for positioning of a target terminal device to be positioned, first information indicating the respective transmit power and the respective location of the at least one RF source.

[0201] In some example embodiments, the third apparatus further comprises: for a respective one of the at least one RF source, means for transmitting, to a plurality of terminal devices with known locations, a suspend indication of data transmission and fourth information indicating a second number of measurements to be performed for the RF source; means for, for a respective one of the plurality of terminal devices, receiving, from the plurality of terminal devices, the second number of measurement results for a signal energy received by the terminal device from the RF source; and means for transmitting, to the plurality of terminal devices, a resume indication of data transmission.

[0202] In some example embodiments, the third apparatus further comprises: for a respective one of the at least one RF source, means for determining a transmit power and a location of the RF source based on the second number of measurement results received from the respective terminal devices and the locations of the respective terminal devices. In some example embodiments, the means for obtaining a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one RF source comprises: for a respective one of the at least one RF source, means for transmitting, to a core network node, the second number of measurement results received from the respective terminal devices and the locations of the respective terminal devices, and means for receiving, from the core network node, the transmit power and the location of the at least one RF source.

[0203] In some example embodiments, the number of terminal devices among the plurality of terminal devices is determined based on a positioning requirement for the RF source.

[0204] In some example embodiments, the positioning requirement for the RF source indicates a location in two-dimensional coordinates, and the number of terminal devices among the plurality of terminal devices is equal to or larger than four. In some example embodiments, the positioning requirement of the RF source indicates a location in three-dimensional coordinates, and the number of terminal devices among the plurality of terminal devices is equal to or larger than five.

[0205] In some example embodiments, the means for determining the transmit power and the location of the RF source comprises: for a respective one of the plurality of terminal devices, determining, based on the second number of measurement results received from the terminal device, a relative magnitude relation between the transmit power of the RF source, and a distance between the RF source and the terminal device; and determining the transmit power and the location of the RF source based on a plurality of relativemagnitude relations determined for the plurality of terminal devices.

[0206] In some example embodiments, the third apparatus is or is comprised in a network device.

[0207] FIG. 7A shows a flowchart of an example method 700 implemented at a first apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the first apparatus may be or may be included in the terminal device 110 or any other target terminal device to be positioned in FIG. 1. The method 700 will be described from the perspective of the first apparatus.

[0208] At block 710, the first apparatus receives, from a network device, an indication for performing energy measurement on at least one radio frequency (RF) source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the first apparatus and the network device.

[0209] At block 720, for a respective one of the at least one RF source, the first apparatus performs at least one measurement on a signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain at least one measurement result for the RF source.

[0210] At block 730, the first apparatus transmits, to the network device, respective at least one measurement result for the at least one RF source, for location estimate of the first apparatus.

[0211] In some example embodiments, the indication for performing energy measurement comprises information indicating a first number of measurements to be performed for a respective one of the at least one RF source. In some example embodiments, performing the at least one measurement comprises: for a respective one of the at least one RF source, performing the first number of measurements on a signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain the first number of corresponding measurement results for the RF source.

[0212] In some example embodiments, the method 700 further comprises: performing at least one transmission of a sounding reference signal to at least one network device.

[0213] In some example embodiments, the number of the at least one network device is determined based on the number of the at least one RF source and a positioning requirement for the first apparatus. In some example embodiments, the method 700 further comprises: receiving, from the network device, information indicating the numberof the at least one network device to which the sounding reference signal is to be transmitted.

[0214] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus is or is comprised in a target terminal device to be positioned. In some example embodiments, the network device is or is comprised in a serving network device for the target terminal device. In some example embodiments, the at least one RF source comprises at least one wireless local area network, WLAN, access point.

[0215] FIG. 7B shows a flowchart of an example method 702 implemented at a second apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the first apparatus may be or may be included in the network device 120 in FIG. 1. The method 702 will be described from the perspective of the second apparatus.

[0216] At block 712, the second apparatus transmits, to a target terminal device to be positioned, an indication for performing energy measurement on at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the second apparatus and the target terminal device.

[0217] At block 722, the second apparatus receives, from the target terminal device, respective at least one measurement result on a signal energy received from the at least one RF source, for location estimate of the target terminal device.

[0218] In some example embodiments, the method 702 further comprises: determining, based on the respective at least one measurement result and a respective transmit power of the at least one RF source, a relative positioning relation between the target terminal device and the at least one RF source; and determining an estimate of a location of the target terminal device based on the respective relative positioning relation between the target terminal device and the at least one RF source, and based on a respective location of the at least one RF resource.

[0219] In some example embodiments, the method 702 further comprises: obtaining respective at least one measurement result on a sounding reference signal transmitted from the target terminal device to at least one network device; and determining the estimate of the location of the target terminal device further based on a respective locationof the at least one network device and the respective at least one measurement result on the sounding reference signal.

[0220] In some example embodiments, the method 702 further comprises: transmitting, from the target terminal device, information indicating a first number of measurements to be performed for a respective one of the at least one RF source. In some example embodiments, the at least one measurement result for a respective one of the at least one RF source comprises the first number of corresponding measurement results for the RF source.

[0221] In some example embodiments, the method 702 further comprises: determining the first number of measurements based on at least one of the following: a requirement on an accuracy level of an estimate of a location of the target terminal device, a geometry of the respective location of the at least one RF source, or a requirement on updating or maintaining a respective measurement result for the at least one RF source.

[0222] In some example embodiments, the method 702 further comprises: for a respective one of the at least one RF source, transmitting, to a plurality of terminal devices with known locations, a suspend indication of data transmission and information indicating a second number of measurements to be performed for a RF source, wherein the number of terminal devices among the plurality of terminal devices is based on a positioning requirement of the RF source; for a respective one of the plurality of terminal devices, receiving, from the terminal device, the second number of measurement results for a signal energy received by the terminal device from the RF source; and transmitting, to the plurality of terminal devices, a resume indication of data transmission.

[0223] In some example embodiments, the method 702 further comprises: for a respective one of the at least one RF source, determining a transmit power and a location of the RF source based on the second number of measurement results received from the respective terminal devices and the locations of the respective terminal devices. In some example embodiments, the method 702 further comprises: for a respective one of the at least one RF source, transmitting, to a core network node, the second number of measurement results received from the respective terminal devices and the locations of the respective terminal devices, and receiving, from the core network node, the transmit power and the location of the at least one RF source.

[0224] In some example embodiments, the positioning requirement of the RF sourceindicates a location in two-dimensional coordinates, and the number of terminal devices among the plurality of terminal devices is equal to or larger than four. In some example embodiments, the positioning requirement of the RF source indicates a location in three-dimensional coordinates, and the number of terminal devices among the plurality of terminal devices is equal to or larger than five.

[0225] In some example embodiments, determining the transmit power and the location of the RF source comprises: for a respective one of the plurality of terminal devices, determine, based on the second number of measurement results received from the terminal device, a relative magnitude relation between the transmit power of the RF source, and a distance between the RF source and the terminal device; and determine the transmit power and the location of the RF source based on a plurality of relative magnitude relations determined for the plurality of terminal devices.

[0226] In some example embodiments, a first apparatus capable of performing any of the method 700 (for example, the terminal device 110 or any other target terminal device to be positioned 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 first apparatus may be implemented as or included in the terminal device 110 or any other target terminal device to be positioned in FIG. 1.

[0227] In some example embodiments, the fourth apparatus comprises means for receiving, from a network device, an indication for performing energy measurement on at least one radio frequency (RF) source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the first apparatus and the network device; means for, for a respective one of the at least one RF source, performing at least one measurement on a signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain at least one measurement result for the RF source; and means for transmitting, to the network device, respective at least one measurement result for the at least one RF source, for location estimate of the first apparatus.

[0228] In some example embodiments, the indication for performing energy measurement comprises information indicating a first number of measurements to be performed for a respective one of the at least one RF source; and the means for performing the at least one measurement comprises: for a respective one of the at least one RF source, means forperforming the first number of measurements on a signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain the first number of corresponding measurement results for the RF source.

[0229] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for performing at least one transmission of a sounding reference signal to at least one network device.

[0230] In some example embodiments, the number of the at least one network device is determined based on the number of the at least one RF source and a positioning requirement for the first apparatus. In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from the network device, information indicating the number of the at least one network device to which the sounding reference signal is to be transmitted.

[0231] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus is or is comprised in a target terminal device to be positioned, and / or wherein the network device is or is comprised in a serving network device for the target terminal device, and / or wherein the at least one RF source comprises at least one wireless local area network, WLAN, access point.

[0232] In some example embodiments, a second apparatus capable of performing any of the method 702 (for example, the network device 120 in FIG. 1) may comprise means for performing the respective operations of the method 702. 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 network device 120 in FIG. 1.

[0233] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus comprises means for transmitting, to a target terminal device to be positioned, an indication for performing energy measurement on at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the second apparatus and the target terminal device; and means for receiving, from the target terminal device, respective at least one measurement result on a signal energy received from the at least one RF source, for location estimate of the target terminal device.

[0234] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for determining, based on the respective at least one measurement result and a respectivetransmit power of the at least one RF source, a relative positioning relation between the target terminal device and the at least one RF source; and means for determining an estimate of a location of the target terminal device based on the respective relative positioning relation between the target terminal device and the at least one RF source, and based on a respective location of the at least one RF resource.

[0235] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for obtaining respective at least one measurement result on a sounding reference signal transmitted from the target terminal device to at least one network device; and means for determining the estimate of the location of the target terminal device further based on a respective location of the at least one network device and the respective at least one measurement result on the sounding reference signal.

[0236] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for transmitting, from the target terminal device, information indicating a first number of measurements to be performed for a respective one of the at least one RF source, and wherein the at least one measurement result for a respective one of the at least one RF source comprises the first number of corresponding measurement results for the RF source.

[0237] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for determining the first number of measurements based on at least one of the following: a requirement on an accuracy level of an estimate of a location of the target terminal device, a geometry of the respective location of the at least one RF source, or a requirement on updating or maintaining a respective measurement result for the at least one RF source.

[0238] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: for a respective one of the at least one RF source, means for transmitting, to a plurality of terminal devices with known locations, a suspend indication of data transmission and information indicating a second number of measurements to be performed for a RF source, wherein the number of terminal devices among the plurality of terminal devices is based on a positioning requirement of the RF source; means for, for a respective one of the plurality of terminal devices, receiving, from the terminal device, the second number of measurement results for a signal energy received by the terminal device from the RF source; and means for transmitting, to the plurality of terminal devices, a resume indication of data transmission.

[0239] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: for a respective one of the at least one RF source, means for determining a transmit power and a location of the RF source based on the second number of measurement results received from the respective terminal devices and the locations of the respective terminal devices. In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: for a respective one of the at least one RF source, means for transmitting, to a core network node, the second number of measurement results received from the respective terminal devices and the locations of the respective terminal devices, and means for receiving, from the core network node, the transmit power and the location of the at least one RF source.

[0240] In some example embodiments, the positioning requirement of the RF source indicates a location in two-dimensional coordinates, and the number of terminal devices among the plurality of terminal devices is equal to or larger than four. In some example embodiments, the positioning requirement of the RF source indicates a location in three-dimensional coordinates, and the number of terminal devices among the plurality of terminal devices is equal to or larger than five.

[0241] In some example embodiments, the means for determining the transmit power and the location of the RF source comprises: for a respective one of the plurality of terminal devices, means for determining, based on the second number of measurement results received from the terminal device, a relative magnitude relation between the transmit power of the RF source, and a distance between the RF source and the terminal device; and means for determining the transmit power and the location of the RF source based on a plurality of relative magnitude relations determined for the plurality of terminal devices.

[0242] 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 terminal device 110, 115, the PRU 116, or the network 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.

[0243] 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 communicationinterfaces 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.

[0244] 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.

[0245] 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 randomaccess memory (RAM) 822 and other volatile memories that will not last in the powerdown duration.

[0246] 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.

[0247] The example embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented by means of the program 830 so that the device 800 may perform any process of the disclosure as discussed with reference to FIG. 2 to FIG. 7B. The example embodiments of the present disclosure may also be implemented by hardware or by a combination of software and hardware.

[0248] In some example embodiments, the program 830 may be tangibly contained in a computer readable medium which may be included in the device 800 (such as in the memory 820) or other storage devices that are accessible by the device 800. The device 800 may load the program 830 from the computer readable medium to the RAM 822 forexecution. 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).

[0249] 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.

[0250] 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.

[0251] Some example embodiments of the present disclosure also provide at least one computer program product tangibly stored on a computer readable medium, such as a non-transitory computer readable medium. The computer program product includes computer-executable instructions, such as those included in program modules, being executed in a device on a target physical or virtual processor, to carry out any of the methods as described above. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, libraries, objects, classes, components, data structures, or the like that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The functionality of the program modules may be combined or split between program modules as desired in various embodiments. Machine-executable instructions for program modules may be executed within a local or distributed device. In a distributed device, program modules may be located in both local and remote storage media.

[0252] 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 beprovided to a processor or controller of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus, such that the program code, when executed by the processor or controller, cause the functions / operations specified in the flowcharts and / or block diagrams to be implemented. The program code may execute entirely on a machine, partly on the machine, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the machine and partly on a remote machine or entirely on the remote machine or server.

[0253] 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.

[0254] 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 readonly memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc readonly memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

[0255] 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 ofembodiments separately or in any suitable sub-combination.

[0256] 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

WHAT IS CLAIMED IS:

1. A first apparatus comprising:at least one processor; andat least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first apparatus at least to:receive, from a second apparatus, first information indicating a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol which is different from a second wireless communication protocol between the first apparatus and the second apparatus;for a respective one of the at least one RF source, perform at least one measurement on a signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain at least one measurement result for the RF source;for a respective one of the at least one RF source, determine, based on the corresponding at least one measurement result and the transmit power of the RF source, a relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and the RF source; and determine an estimate of a location of the first apparatus based on the respective location of the at least one RF source and the respective relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and the at least one RF source.

2. The first apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first apparatus is further caused to: receive, from the second apparatus, second information indicating a first number of measurements to be performed for a respective one of the at least one RF source; and wherein the first apparatus is caused to perform the at least one measurement by: for a respective one of the at least one RF source, performing the first number of measurements on the signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain the first number of corresponding measurement results for the RF source.

3. The first apparatus of claim 1 or 2, wherein the first apparatus is further caused to: perform at least one transmission of a positioning reference signal to at least one anchor device; andreceive, from the at least one anchor device, at least one measurement result on thepositioning reference signal; andwherein the first apparatus is caused to determine the estimate of the location of the first apparatus by:determining the estimate of the location of the first apparatus further based on a respective location of the at least one anchor device and the at least one measurement result on the positioning reference signal.

4. The first apparatus of claim 3, wherein the first apparatus is caused to:in accordance with a determination that completion of the respective at least one measurement on the signal energy received from the at least one RF source, initiate the at least one transmission of the positioning reference signal to the at least one anchor device.

5. The first apparatus of claim 3 or 4, wherein the number of the at least one anchor device is determined based on the number of the at least one RF source and a positioning requirement for the first apparatus.

6. The first apparatus of any of claims 3 to 5, wherein the first apparatus is further caused to:receive, from the second apparatus, third information indicating the respective location of the at least one anchor device.

7. The first apparatus of any of claims 1 to 6, wherein a relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and a RF source is represented by an estimate of a distance between the first apparatus and the RF source.

8. The first apparatus of any of claims 1 to 7, wherein the first apparatus is or is comprised in a target terminal device to be positioned, and / orwherein the second apparatus is or is comprised in a terminal device operating as a server for positioning of the target terminal device, and / orwherein the at least one RF source comprises at least one wireless local area network, WLAN, access point.

9. A second apparatus comprising:at least one processor; andat least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the second apparatus at least to:transmit, to a target terminal device to be positioned, first information indicating a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source in vicinity of the target terminal device, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the second apparatus and the target terminal device.

10. The second apparatus of claim 9, wherein the second apparatus is further caused to: receive, from a network device, information indicating the respective transmit power and the respective location of the at least one RF source.

11. The second apparatus of claim 9 or 10, wherein the second apparatus is further caused to:transmit, to the target terminal device, second information indicating a first number of measurements to be performed for a respective one of the at least one RF source.

12. The second apparatus of claim 11, wherein the second apparatus is further caused to:determine the first number of measurements based on at least one of the following: a requirement on an accuracy level of an estimate of a location of the target terminal device,a geometry of the respective location of the at least one RF source, or a requirement on updating or maintaining a respective measurement result for the at least one RF source.

13. The second apparatus of any of claims 9 to 12, wherein the second apparatus is further caused to:transmit, to the target terminal device, third information indicating a respective location of at least one anchor device, andwherein the number of the at least one anchor device is determined based on the number of the at least one RF source and a positioning requirement for the target terminal device.

14. The second apparatus of any of claims 9 to 13, wherein the at least one RF sourcecomprises at least one wireless local area network, WLAN, access point.

15. A third apparatus comprising:at least one processor; andat least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the third apparatus at least to:obtain a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol supported by the third apparatus; andtransmit, to a terminal device operating as a server for positioning of a target terminal device to be positioned, first information indicating the respective transmit power and the respective location of the at least one RF source.

16. The third apparatus of claim 15, wherein the third apparatus is caused to: for a respective one of the at least one RF source,transmit, to a plurality of terminal devices with known locations, a suspend indication of data transmission and fourth information indicating a second number of measurements to be performed for the RF source;for a respective one of the plurality of terminal devices, receive, from the plurality of terminal devices, the second number of measurement results for a signal energy received by the terminal device from the RF source; andtransmit, to the plurality of terminal devices, a resume indication of data transmission.

17. The third apparatus of claim 16, wherein the third apparatus is caused to: for a respective one of the at least one RF source,determine a transmit power and a location of the RF source based on the second number of measurement results received from the respective terminal devices and the locations of the respective terminal devices; orwherein the third apparatus is caused to: for a respective one of the at least one RF source,transmit, to a core network node, the second number of measurement results received from the respective terminal devices and the locations of the respective terminal devices, andreceive, from the core network node, the transmit power and the location of the at least one RF source.

18. The third apparatus of claim 16 or 17, wherein the number of terminal devices among the plurality of terminal devices is determined based on a positioning requirement for the RF source.

19. The third apparatus of any of claims 16 to 18, wherein the positioning requirement for the RF source indicates a location in two-dimensional coordinates, and the number of terminal devices among the plurality of terminal devices is equal to or larger than four; or wherein the positioning requirement of the RF source indicates a location in three-dimensional coordinates, and the number of terminal devices among the plurality of terminal devices is equal to or larger than five.

20. The third apparatus of any of claims 16 to 19, wherein the third apparatus is caused to determine the transmit power and the location of the RF source by:for a respective one of the plurality of terminal devices, determining, based on the second number of measurement results received from the terminal device, a relative magnitude relation between the transmit power of the RF source, and a distance between the RF source and the terminal device; anddetermining the transmit power and the location of the RF source based on a plurality of relative magnitude relations determined for the plurality of terminal devices.

21. The third apparatus of any of claims 15 to 20, wherein the third apparatus is or is comprised in a network device.

22. A method comprising:receiving, by a first apparatus and from a second apparatus, first information indicating a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol which is different from a second wireless communication protocol between the first apparatus and the second apparatus;for a respective one of the at least one RF source, performing at least one measurement on a signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain at least one measurement result for the RF source;for a respective one of the at least one RF source, determining, based on the corresponding at least one measurement result and the transmit power of the RF source, a relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and the RF source; and determining an estimate of a location of the first apparatus based on the respective location of the at least one RF source and the respective relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and the at least one RF source.

23. A method comprising:transmitting, by a second apparatus and to a target terminal device to be positioned, first information indicating a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source in vicinity of the target terminal device, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the second apparatus and the target terminal device.

24. A method comprising:obtaining, by a third apparatus, a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol supported by the third apparatus; andtransmitting, to a terminal device operating as a server for positioning of a target terminal device to be positioned, first information indicating the respective transmit power and the respective location of the at least one RF source.

25. A first apparatus comprising:means for receiving, from a second apparatus, first information indicating a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol which is different from a second wireless communication protocol between the first apparatus and the second apparatus;means for, for a respective one of the at least one RF source, performing at least one measurement on a signal energy received from the RF source, to obtain at least one measurement result for the RF source;means for, for a respective one of the at least one RF source, determining, based on the corresponding at least one measurement result and the transmit power of the RF source, a relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and the RF source; andmeans for determining an estimate of a location of the first apparatus based on the respective location of the at least one RF source and the respective relative positioning relation between the first apparatus and the at least one RF source.

26. A second apparatus comprising:means for transmitting, to a target terminal device to be positioned, first information indicating a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source in vicinity of the target terminal device, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol between the second apparatus and the target terminal device.

27. A third apparatus comprising:means for obtaining a respective transmit power and a respective location of at least one radio frequency, RF, source, wherein a RF source supports a first wireless communication protocol different from a second wireless communication protocol supported by the third apparatus; andmeans for transmitting, to a terminal device operating as a server for positioning of a target terminal device to be positioned, first information indicating the respective transmit power and the respective location of the at least one RF source.

28. A computer readable medium comprising instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus at least to perform the method of claim 22, the method of claim 23, or the method of claim 24.

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