Information transmission method and communication apparatus

Abstract

Provided in the present application are an information transmission method and a communication apparatus, wherein the method relates to the technical field of communications. The method comprises: a terminal device determining a first resource occupied by a first part of information; then, on the basis of second information, the first resource, and a third resource occupied by first information, determining a second resource occupied by a second part of information, wherein the second information is information related to the encoding of the second part of information, and the first information comprises the first part of information and the second part of information; and further, on the basis of the first resource and the second resource, sending the first information, or, on the basis of a fourth resource occupied by the first part of information and the second resource, sending the first information, wherein the fourth resource herein is determined on the basis of the second resource and the third resource. By means of the method, when a CSI report comprises a JSCC part and a non-JSCC part, the transmission integrity of the CSI report can be ensured, and the communication performance can be ensured.

Description

Information transmission methods and communication devices

[0001] This application claims priority to Chinese Patent Application No. 202510134410.3, filed on February 6, 2025, with the China National Intellectual Property Administration, entitled "Information Transmission Method and Communication Device", the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. Technical Field

[0002] This application relates to the field of communication technology, and in particular to information transmission methods and communication devices. Background Technology

[0003] Terminal devices can determine the content of the CSI report and report it to network devices by measuring the channel state information (CSI) reference signal (CSI-RS) associated with the CSI report. The CSI report may include information such as the CSI-RS resource indicator (CRI), channel quality indicator (CQI), rank indicator (RI), precoding matrix indicator (PMI), and layer indicator (LI).

[0004] The CSI feedback mechanism includes CSI information generation (which can be equivalently understood as source coding) and channel coding. Joint source-channel coding (JSCC) is a technique that jointly designs source coding and channel coding to optimize the overall performance of the communication system. Compared to separate and independent coding of the source and channel, JSCC can further improve performance through joint optimization, especially under low signal-to-noise ratio conditions, where the performance improvement is particularly significant. Therefore, when introducing JSCC into CSI feedback, how to transmit the CSI report is a pressing issue that needs to be addressed. Summary of the Invention

[0005] This application provides an information transmission method and a communication device. Based on the method described in this application, the integrity of CSI report transmission can be guaranteed, and communication performance can be ensured.

[0006] Firstly, embodiments of this application provide an information transmission method, which can be applied to the terminal side, such as a terminal device or a communication module / processing module in the terminal device, or a circuit or chip in the terminal device responsible for communication functions (such as a modem chip, also known as a baseband chip, or a system-on-chip (SoC) chip containing a modem core, or a system-in-package (SIP) chip), or a circuit or chip in the terminal device responsible for processing functions (such as a graphics processing unit (GPU), an artificial intelligence (AI) processor, or an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)). Taking the application of this method to a terminal device as an example, in this method:

[0007] The terminal device determines the first resource occupied by the first part of information; then, based on the second information, the first resource, and the third resource occupied by the first information, it determines the second resource occupied by the second part of information; wherein, the second information is information related to the encoding of the second part of information, and the first information includes the first part of information and the second part of information; further, based on the first resource and the second resource, the first information is sent; or, based on the fourth resource and the second resource occupied by the first part of information, the first information is sent; here, the fourth resource is determined based on the second resource and the third resource.

[0008] Using the above method, the channel state information (CSI) report (i.e., the first information) is divided into two parts: the first part and the second part. The terminal device can prioritize allocating the uplink control information (UCI) resources occupied by the CSI report (i.e., the third resource occupied by the first information) to the first part, and then allocate the corresponding resources to the second part according to the remaining resources. This allows the first part and the second part to be transmitted on their respective resources, ensuring the integrity of the CSI report transmission and guaranteeing communication performance.

[0009] In one possible implementation, the first part of the information is generated based on independent coding of the source channel, and the second part of the information is generated based on joint coding of the source channel.

[0010] In the embodiments of this application, the first part of the information (such as channel state information reference signal resource indicator (CRI), channel quality indicator (CQI), rank indicator (RI), layer indicator (LI), and other information that is not directly related to the channel matrix or channel feature vector) adopts the source-channel independent coding (i.e., joint source-channel coding (JSCC)) mode (which can be called the non-JSCC part); the second part of the information (i.e., information such as the channel matrix, channel feature vector, or feature matrix, such as the precoding matrix indicator (PMI)) adopts the JSCC mode (which can be called the JSCC part). The CSI report includes both JSCC and non-JSCC parts, and when both JSCC and non-JSCC parts are transmitted simultaneously, the CSI report can be submitted using a hybrid transmission method that combines JSCC and non-JSCC. This ensures the transmission of the non-JSCC part while also obtaining the required JSCC part. It fully utilizes the advantages of JSCC's low signal-to-noise ratio (i.e., enables JSCC-compatible CSI feedback methods) and also ensures the integrity of the CSI report transmission and communication performance.

[0011] In one possible implementation, the second information includes information related to the first model.

[0012] In this embodiment, the first model (such as the JSCC model) can also be understood as an AI model, AI function, AI configuration, or AI characteristic, etc., and is not limited thereto. This AI-based feedback mechanism can improve the accuracy of the feedback information. For example, the second information includes the capability information of the first model.

[0013] In one possible implementation, the terminal device determines the second resource occupied by the second part of the information based on the second information, the first resource, and the third resource occupied by the first information. Specifically, the implementation may be: determining the fifth resource based on the first resource and the third resource occupied by the first information; and determining the second resource occupied by the second part of the information based on the second information and the fifth resource.

[0014] In this embodiment, the terminal device determines the remaining UCI resources, i.e., the fifth resource, based on the first resource occupied by the determined first part of the information and the UCI resources (i.e., the third resource) occupied by the first information. Further, the terminal device determines the second resource occupied by the second part of the information based on the second information and the remaining UCI resources (i.e., the fifth resource). In this way, the transmission of non-JSCC portions can be guaranteed, and the resources occupied by the JSCC portions that meet the requirements can also be determined.

[0015] In one possible implementation, the terminal device sends first information based on the first resource and the second resource. Specifically, the first information is sent based on the first resource and the second resource when the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource is equal to the number of resources corresponding to the second resource.

[0016] In this embodiment, after the terminal device determines the first resource occupied by the first part of information and the second resource occupied by the second part of information, if the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource is equal to the number of resources corresponding to the second resource, it means that all the remaining UCI resources (i.e., the fifth resource) have been allocated to the second part of information. At this time, there are no extra UCI resources in the third resource occupied by the first information. Therefore, the terminal device can modulate the first part of information and send the first part of information to the network device based on the first resource occupied by the first part of information; at the same time, it can also modulate the second part of information and send the second part of information to the network device based on the second resource occupied by the second part of information, thereby realizing the complete transmission of the first information.

[0017] In one possible implementation, the terminal device sends the first information based on the fourth and second resources occupied by the first part of the information. Specifically, if the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource is greater than the number of resources corresponding to the second resource, the first information is sent based on the fourth and second resources occupied by the first part of the information.

[0018] In this embodiment, after the terminal device determines the first resource occupied by the first part of information and the second resource occupied by the second part of information, if the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource is greater than the number of resources corresponding to the second resource, it indicates that the remaining UCI resources (i.e., the fifth resource) have not been fully allocated to the second part of information. At this time, there are still surplus UCI resources in the third resource occupied by the first information. Therefore, in order to ensure that the resources occupied by the first part of information are more sufficient and to make full use of the UCI resources, the resources occupied by the first part of information can be readjusted according to the third and second resources to obtain the fourth resource. The terminal device can then modulate the first part of information and send it to the network device based on the fourth resource occupied by the first part of information; at the same time, it can also modulate the second part of information and send it to the network device based on the second resource occupied by the second part of information, thereby realizing the complete transmission of the first information.

[0019] In one possible implementation, the method further includes: the terminal device acquiring a first threshold, wherein the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource is greater than or equal to the first threshold.

[0020] In this embodiment of the application, in order to ensure that JSCC has certain performance, the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource can be further limited by the first threshold.

[0021] In one possible implementation, the first model supports continuous values ​​for its output dimension, and the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource is equal to the number of resources corresponding to the second resource. This can be understood as follows: when the first model supports continuous values ​​for its output dimension (i.e., the output can be any value), the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource can be equal to the number of resources corresponding to the second resource.

[0022] In one possible implementation, the output dimension supported by the first model is discrete values, and the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource is greater than or equal to the number of resources corresponding to the second resource. This can be understood as follows: when the output dimension supported by the first model is discrete values, the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource will be greater than or equal to the number of resources corresponding to the second resource.

[0023] In one possible implementation, the output dimension supported by the first model belongs to a first set, which includes M positive integers, where M is a positive integer; the resource quantity corresponding to the second resource is the first value among the X values ​​corresponding to the output dimension of the first model; the first value is less than the resource quantity corresponding to the fifth resource, and the difference between the first value and the resource quantity corresponding to the fifth resource is the smallest; here, the X values ​​belong to the first set. This can be understood as follows: when the output dimension supported by the first model is a discrete value, it can be agreed that the value among the X values ​​corresponding to the output dimension of the first model that is closest to and does not exceed the resource quantity corresponding to the fifth resource can be selected as the resource quantity corresponding to the second resource.

[0024] In one possible implementation, the first code block corresponding to the first part of the information includes third information and cyclic redundancy check (CRC); or, the first code block corresponding to the first part of the information includes third information, CRC and first indication information; the first indication information is used to indicate the resources occupied by the second part of the information, and the third information includes one or more of the following: CRI, CQI, RI, or LI.

[0025] In this embodiment, since the network device also needs to receive the first information from the terminal device based on the resources occupied by the first part of the information and the resources occupied by the second part of the information, the network device needs to align the resources occupied by the first part of the information and the resources occupied by the second part of the information with the terminal device. Specifically, the network device can determine the resources occupied by the first part of the information itself based on the CSI configuration information; while for the resources occupied by the second part of the information, the terminal device and the network device can use a predefined method for alignment, or the terminal device can indicate this to the network device through the first part of the information.

[0026] In one possible implementation, the first information is obtained by concatenating codewords based on the first part of information and the second part of information.

[0027] In this embodiment, when the modulation method of the first part of the information is the same as that of the second part of the information, the first part of the information and the second part of the information can be concatenated and then uniformly modulated, which helps to save power consumption. The codeword concatenation can be protocol-defined as sequential concatenation, such as "[first part of information, second part of information]", but other concatenation methods can also be used, which are not limited here.

[0028] In one possible implementation, the method further includes: the terminal device sending fourth information, which is information related to source-channel joint coding. This can be understood as the terminal device reporting its support for source-channel joint coding to the network device, and also reporting other information related to source-channel joint coding, such as the output dimension information supported by the first model.

[0029] In one possible implementation, the second part of the information includes precoding matrix information. This can be understood as including information related to the precoding matrix, such as the precoding matrix, channel matrix, precoding vector, and channel eigenvectors.

[0030] Secondly, embodiments of this application provide an information transmission method, which can be applied to the terminal side, such as a terminal device or a communication module / processing module in the terminal device, or a circuit or chip in the terminal device responsible for communication functions (such as a modem chip, also known as a baseband chip, or a system-on-chip (SoC) chip containing a modem core or a system-in-package (SIP) chip), or a circuit or chip in the terminal device responsible for processing functions (such as a graphics processing unit (GPU), an artificial intelligence (AI) processor, or an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)). Taking the application of this method to a terminal device as an example, in this method:

[0031] The terminal device receives first configuration information, which is used to configure the initial resources occupied by the second part of the information; then, based on the initial resources and the third resources occupied by the first information, it determines the sixth resources occupied by the first part of the information; wherein, the first information includes the first part of the information and the second part of the information; further, based on the initial resources and the sixth resources, the first information is sent; or, based on the seventh resources occupied by the second part of the information and the eighth resources occupied by the first part of the information, the first information is sent; here, the seventh resources are less than the initial resources, and the eighth resources are determined based on the seventh resources and the third resources.

[0032] Using the above method, the CSI report (i.e., the first information) is divided into two parts: the first part and the second part. Initial resources allocated to the terminal device for the second part can be prioritized to ensure its basic performance. While ensuring the basic performance of the second part, the terminal device can flexibly allocate resources to the first part, simultaneously maintaining its performance. This allows both parts to be transmitted on their respective resources, guaranteeing the integrity of the CSI report transmission and ensuring communication performance.

[0033] In one possible implementation, the first part of the information is generated based on independent coding of the source channel, and the second part of the information is generated based on joint coding of the source channel.

[0034] In this embodiment, the first part of the information (such as indirect channel matrix or channel feature vector information like CRI, CQI, RI, LI, etc.) adopts a source-channel independent coding (i.e., non-JSCC) mode (i.e., non-JSCC part); the second part of the information (such as channel matrix, channel feature vector, or feature matrix information like PMI channel feature vector) adopts a JSCC mode (i.e., JSCC part). The CSI report includes both JSCC and non-JSCC parts, and with both JSCC and non-JSCC parts transmitted simultaneously, the CSI report can be submitted using a hybrid transmission method of JSCC and non-JSCC. This ensures the transmission of the non-JSCC part while also obtaining the required JSCC part; it fully utilizes the advantages of JSCC's low signal-to-noise ratio (i.e., enabling JSCC-compatible CSI feedback methods) while also ensuring the integrity of the CSI report transmission and communication performance.

[0035] In one possible implementation, the second part of the information is information related to the first model.

[0036] In the embodiments of this application, the first model (such as the JSCC model) can also be understood as an AI model, AI function, AI configuration, or AI characteristic, etc., and is not limited thereto. This AI-based feedback mechanism can improve the accuracy of feedback information.

[0037] In one possible implementation, the method further includes: the terminal device receiving second configuration information, which is used to configure the maximum bit rate corresponding to the first part of the information; or, the first configuration information is further used to configure the maximum bit rate corresponding to the first part of the information. This can be understood as the network device configuring the maximum bit rate corresponding to the first part of the information to the terminal device, in addition to configuring the initial resources occupied by the second part of the information.

[0038] In one possible implementation, the method further includes: determining a first code rate corresponding to the first part of the information based on the sixth resource, the first code block corresponding to the first part of the information, and the modulation scheme of the first part of the information; wherein the first code block includes third information and CRC; or, the first code block includes third information, CRC, and first indication information; the first indication information is used to indicate the resources occupied by the second part of the information, and the third information includes one or more of the following: CRI, CQI, RI, or LI.

[0039] In this embodiment, a first bitrate corresponding to the first part of the information can be determined to ensure the transmission performance of the first part of the information. Furthermore, since the network device also needs to receive the first information from the terminal device based on the resources occupied by the first part of the information and the resources occupied by the second part of the information, the network device needs to align the resources occupied by the first part of the information and the second part of the information with the terminal device. Specifically, the network device can determine the resources occupied by the first part of the information itself based on CSI configuration information; while for the resources occupied by the second part of the information, the terminal device and the network device can use a predefined method for alignment, or the terminal device can indicate this to the network device through the first part of the information.

[0040] In one possible implementation, the terminal device sends the first information based on the initial resource and the sixth resource. Specifically, if the first bit rate is less than or equal to the maximum bit rate, the first information is sent based on the initial resource and the sixth resource.

[0041] In this embodiment of the application, when the first bit rate is less than or equal to the maximum bit rate, it indicates that the first part of the information meets the bit rate requirements. The terminal device can directly modulate the first part of the information and send it to the network device based on the sixth resource occupied by the first part of the information. At the same time, it can also modulate the second part of the information and send it to the network device based on the initial resource occupied by the second part of the information, thereby realizing the complete transmission of the first information.

[0042] In one possible implementation, the terminal device sends the first information based on the seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information and the eighth resource occupied by the first part of the information. Specifically, if the first bit rate is greater than the maximum bit rate, the first information is sent based on the seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information and the eighth resource occupied by the first part of the information.

[0043] In this embodiment, when the first bit rate is less than or equal to the maximum bit rate, it indicates that the first part of the information does not meet the bit rate requirements, and the resources occupied by the second part of the information need to be reduced to obtain the seventh resource (that is, the seventh resource is less than the initial resource). Similarly, since the resources occupied by the second part of the information are reduced, the resources occupied by the first part of the information need to be increased accordingly, resulting in the eighth resource. The terminal device can then modulate the first part of the information and send it to the network device based on the eighth resource occupied by the first part of the information; at the same time, it can also modulate the second part of the information and send it to the network device based on the seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information, thereby achieving complete transmission of the first information.

[0044] In one possible implementation, the method further includes: the terminal device receiving third configuration information, which is used to configure a seventh resource; or, the first configuration information or the second configuration information is also used to configure a seventh resource; or, the terminal device receiving third configuration information, which is used to configure a first step length, wherein the seventh resource is determined based on an initial resource and a first step length; or, the first configuration information or the second configuration information is also used to configure a first step length, wherein the seventh resource is determined based on an initial resource and a first step length.

[0045] In this embodiment of the application, this approach allows for more flexible adjustment of the resources occupied by the second part of the information.

[0046] In one possible implementation, the seventh resource is determined based on the initial resource and the length of the first step. This approach allows for more flexible adjustment of the resources used by the second part of the information.

[0047] In one possible implementation, the length of this first step is related to the capabilities of the first model. For example, the resources consumed by the second part of the information need to be adjusted within the capabilities of the first model.

[0048] In one possible implementation, the first information is obtained by concatenating codewords based on the first part of information and the second part of information.

[0049] In this embodiment, when the modulation method of the first part of the information is the same as that of the second part of the information, the first part of the information and the second part of the information can be concatenated and then uniformly modulated, which helps to save power consumption. The codeword concatenation can be protocol-defined as sequential concatenation, such as "[first part of information, second part of information]", but other concatenation methods can also be used, which are not limited here.

[0050] In one possible implementation, the method further includes: the terminal device sending fourth information, which is information related to source-channel joint coding. This can be understood as the terminal device reporting its support for source-channel joint coding to the network device, and also reporting other information related to source-channel joint coding, such as the output dimension information supported by the first model.

[0051] In one possible implementation, the second part of the information includes precoding matrix information. This can be understood as including information related to the precoding matrix, such as the precoding matrix, channel matrix, precoding vector, and channel eigenvectors.

[0052] Thirdly, embodiments of this application provide a communication device for executing the methods of the first aspect or the second aspect, or any possible implementation thereof. The communication device includes modules for executing the methods of the first aspect or the second aspect, or any possible implementation thereof.

[0053] Fourthly, embodiments of this application provide a communication device including a processing circuit for executing the methods described in the first aspect or the second aspect, or any possible implementation thereof. The processing circuit executes a program stored in a memory, and when the program is executed, the methods described in the first aspect or the second aspect, or any possible implementation thereof, are executed.

[0054] In one possible implementation, the memory is located outside the aforementioned communication device.

[0055] In one possible implementation, the memory is located within the aforementioned communication device.

[0056] In this embodiment, the processing circuitry and memory can also be integrated into a single device; that is, the processing circuitry and memory can be integrated together. For example, the communication device can be a chip.

[0057] In one possible implementation, the communication device further includes a transceiver circuit for receiving information (or inputting information) or sending information (or outputting information).

[0058] Fifthly, embodiments of this application provide a communication device, which includes a processing circuit and a transceiver circuit. The processing circuit can be a logic circuit, and the transceiver circuit can be an interface circuit. The logic circuit and the interface circuit are coupled. The interface circuit is used to input and / or output information, and the logic circuit is used to execute the method in the first aspect or the second aspect, or any possible implementation of the first aspect or the second aspect.

[0059] In a sixth aspect, embodiments of this application provide a chip including a processing circuit and an interface circuit, the processing circuit and the interface circuit being coupled; the interface circuit is used for inputting and / or outputting information, and the processing circuit is used for executing code instructions to cause the methods shown in the first aspect or the second aspect, or any possible implementation of the first aspect or the second aspect, to be executed.

[0060] In a seventh aspect, embodiments of this application provide a computer-readable storage medium for storing a computer program that, when run on a computer, causes the methods shown in the first or second aspect, or any possible implementation thereof, to be executed.

[0061] Eighthly, embodiments of this application provide a computer program product that, when run on a computer, causes the methods shown in the first or second aspect, or any possible implementation of the first or second aspect, to be executed.

[0062] Ninthly, this application provides a communication system including a terminal device, which is configured to perform the method shown in the first aspect or any possible implementation thereof, or to perform the method shown in the second aspect or any possible implementation thereof. Attached Figure Description

[0063] Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of the architecture of a communication system provided in an embodiment of this application;

[0064] Figure 2A is a schematic diagram of a possible application framework in a communication system provided by an embodiment of this application;

[0065] Figure 2B is a schematic diagram of another possible application framework in a communication system provided by an embodiment of this application;

[0066] Figure 3A is a schematic diagram of a traditional CSI feedback mechanism provided in an embodiment of this application;

[0067] Figure 3B is a schematic diagram of an AI-based CSI feedback mechanism provided in an embodiment of this application;

[0068] Figure 3C is a schematic diagram of another AI-based CSI feedback mechanism provided in an embodiment of this application;

[0069] Figure 3D is a schematic diagram of a source-channel joint coding of CSI provided in an embodiment of this application;

[0070] Figure 4 is a flowchart illustrating an information transmission method provided in an embodiment of this application;

[0071] Figure 5 is a flowchart illustrating another information transmission method provided in an embodiment of this application;

[0072] Figure 6 is a schematic diagram of the structure of a communication device provided in an embodiment of this application;

[0073] Figure 7 is a schematic diagram of another communication device provided in an embodiment of this application;

[0074] Figure 8 is a schematic diagram of another communication device provided in an embodiment of this application. Detailed Implementation

[0075] To facilitate understanding of the technical solution of this application, the application will be further described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0076] The terms "first" and "second," etc., used in the specification, claims, and drawings of this application are used only to distinguish different objects and not to describe a specific order. Furthermore, the terms "comprising" and "having," and any variations thereof, are intended to cover non-exclusive inclusion. For example, a process, method, system, product, or apparatus that includes a series of steps or units is not limited to the listed steps or units, but may optionally include steps or units not listed, or may optionally include other steps or units inherent to these processes, methods, products, or apparatuses.

[0077] The term "embodiment" as used herein means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with an embodiment may be included in at least one embodiment of this application. The appearance of this phrase in various places throughout the specification does not necessarily refer to the same embodiment, nor is it a separate or alternative embodiment mutually exclusive with other embodiments. It will be explicitly and implicitly understood by those skilled in the art that the embodiments described herein can be combined with other embodiments.

[0078] In this application, "at least one (item)" refers to one or more, "more than one" refers to two or more, "at least two (items)" refers to two or three or more, and "and / or" is used to describe the relationship between related objects, indicating that there can be three relationships. For example, "A and / or B" can mean: only A exists, only B exists, and both A and B exist simultaneously, where A and B can be singular or plural. "Or" indicates that there can be two relationships, such as only A exists and only B exists; when A and B are not mutually exclusive, it can also mean that there are three relationships, such as only A exists, only B exists, and both A and B exist simultaneously. The character " / " generally indicates that the preceding and following related objects are in an "or" relationship. "At least one (item) of the following" or similar expressions refer to any combination of these items. For example, at least one (item) of a, b, or c can mean: a, b, c, "a and b", "a and c", "b and c", or "a and b and c".

[0079] In this application, "send" and "receive" indicate the direction of signal transmission. For example, "send information to XX" can be understood as the destination of the information being XX, which can include direct transmission via the air interface or indirect transmission via the air interface from other units or modules. "Receive information from YY" can be understood as the source of the information being YY, which can include direct reception from YY via the air interface or indirect reception from YY via the air interface from other units or modules. "Send" can also be understood as the "output" of a chip interface, and "receive" can also be understood as the "input" of a chip interface. In other words, sending and receiving can occur between devices, such as between network devices and terminal devices, or within a device, such as between components, modules, chips, software modules, or hardware modules within the device via buses, traces, or interfaces.

[0080] To better understand the embodiments of this application, the communication system involved in the embodiments of this application will be described below:

[0081] The method provided in this application can be applied to various communication systems, such as: wireless local area network (WLAN) communication systems, wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) systems, multiple-in multiple-out (MIMO) communication systems, long-term evolution (LTE) systems, internet of things (IoT) systems, narrowband internet of things (NB-IoT) systems, LTE frequency division duplex (FDD) systems, LTE time division duplex (TDD) systems, fourth-generation (4G) systems, fifth-generation (5G) systems, or new radio (NR) systems, and other future communication systems, such as sixth-generation (6G) systems. Among these, IoT networks may include, but are not limited to, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) networks. The communication methods in V2X systems can be collectively referred to as vehicle-to-everything (V2X), where X can represent anything. For example, V2X can include vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication, vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication, vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) communication, or vehicle-to-network (V2N) communication. The method provided in this application also supports communication systems that integrate multiple wireless technologies. For example, it can be applied to systems that integrate non-terrestrial networks (NTN) with terrestrial mobile communication networks, such as drones, satellite communication systems, and high-altitude platform station (HAPS) communication. Additionally, it can be applied to low-frequency (sub-6GHz) and high-frequency (above 6GHz) communication scenarios. It is understood that the system architecture described in this application is for the purpose of more clearly illustrating the technical solutions of this application and does not constitute a limitation on the technical solutions provided in this application.

[0082] Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of the architecture of a communication system applicable to an embodiment of this application. As shown in Figure 1, the communication system 10 includes a radio access network (RAN) 100 and a core network (CN) 200. RAN 100 includes at least one RAN node (110a and 110b in Figure 1, collectively referred to as 110) and at least one terminal (120a-120j in Figure 1, collectively referred to as 120). RAN 100 may also include other RAN nodes, such as wireless relay devices and / or wireless backhaul devices (not shown in Figure 1). Terminal 120 is wirelessly connected to RAN node 110. RAN node 110 is wirelessly or wired connected to core network 200. The core network devices in core network 200 and RAN node 110 in RAN 100 can be different physical devices, or they can be the same physical device integrating core network logical functions and radio access network logical functions.

[0083] RAN 100 can be a cellular system related to the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), such as 4G, 5G mobile communication systems, or future-oriented evolution systems. RAN 100 can also be an open RAN (O-RAN or ORAN), a cloud radio access network (CRAN), or a wireless fidelity (WiFi) system. RAN 100 can also be a communication system that integrates two or more of the above systems.

[0084] RAN node 110, sometimes also referred to as access network equipment, network device, RAN entity, or access node, constitutes part of the communication system and is used to help terminals achieve wireless access. Multiple RAN nodes 110 in communication system 10 can be of the same type or different types. In some scenarios, the roles of RAN node 110 and terminal 120 are relative. For example, network element 120i in Figure 1 can be a helicopter or drone, which can be configured as a mobile base station. For terminals 120j accessing RAN 100 through network element 120i, network element 120i is a base station; but for base station 110a, network element 120i is a terminal. RAN node 110 and terminal 120 are sometimes both referred to as communication devices. For example, network elements 110a and 110b in Figure 1 can be understood as communication devices with base station functions, and network elements 120a-120j can be understood as communication devices with terminal functions.

[0085] In one possible scenario, the RAN node can be a base station, an evolved NodeB (eNodeB), an access point (AP), a transmission reception point (TRP), a next-generation NodeB (gNB), a base station in a future mobile communication system, or an access node in a WiFi system. The RAN node can be a macro base station (as shown in Figure 1, 110a), a micro base station or indoor station (as shown in Figure 1, 110b), a relay node or donor node, or a radio controller in a CRAN scenario. Optionally, the RAN node can also be a server, wearable device, vehicle, or in-vehicle equipment. For example, the access network equipment in vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology can be a roadside unit (RSU). All or part of the functions of the RAN node in this application can also be implemented through software functions running on hardware, or through virtualization functions instantiated on a platform (e.g., a cloud platform). The RAN node can also be equipped with communication modules, circuits, or chips that perform corresponding communication functions. The RAN node can also be configured with program instructions for performing corresponding communication functions, as well as corresponding program instructions. The RAN node in this application can also be a logical node, logical module, or software capable of implementing all or part of the RAN node's functions.

[0086] In another possible scenario, multiple RAN nodes collaborate to assist the terminal in achieving wireless access, with each RAN node performing a portion of the base station's functions. For example, RAN nodes can be central units (CUs), distributed units (DUs), CU-control plane (CPs), CU-user plane (UPs), or radio units (RUs), etc. CUs and DUs can be separate entities or included in the same network element, such as a baseband unit (BBU). RUs can be included in radio frequency equipment or radio frequency units, such as remote radio units (RRUs), active antenna units (AAUs), or remote radio heads (RRHs).

[0087] In different systems, CU (or CU-CP and CU-UP), DU, or RU may have different names, but those skilled in the art will understand their meaning. For example, in an ORAN system, CU can also be called O-CU (open CU), DU can also be called O-DU, CU-CP can also be called O-CU-CP, CU-UP can also be called O-CU-UP, and RU can also be called O-RU. For ease of description, this application uses CU, CU-CP, CU-UP, DU, and RU as examples. Any of the units among CU (or CU-CP, CU-UP), DU, and RU in this application can be implemented through software modules, hardware modules, or a combination of software and hardware modules.

[0088] A terminal can be a device or module that accesses the aforementioned communication system and has corresponding communication functions. A terminal can also be called a terminal device, user equipment (UE), mobile station, mobile terminal, etc. Terminals can be widely used in various scenarios, such as device-to-device (D2D), vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, machine-type communication (MTC), Internet of Things (IoT), extended reality (ER), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), industrial control, autonomous driving, telemedicine, smart grids, smart furniture, smart offices, smart wearables, smart transportation, smart cities, etc. Terminals can be mobile phones, tablets, computers with wireless transceiver capabilities, wearable devices (such as smartwatches, smart bracelets, pedometers, etc.), vehicles, drones, helicopters, airplanes, ships, robots, robotic arms, smart home devices, transportation vehicles with wireless communication capabilities, communication modules, etc. The embodiments of this application do not limit the device form of the terminal. Terminals typically contain communication modules, circuits, or chips that perform the corresponding communication functions. They may also contain program instructions configured to perform these functions.

[0089] Core network equipment refers to the equipment in the core network that provides service support for terminal devices. It is primarily responsible for registration, call setup, billing, mobility management, providing user connectivity, managing users, and carrying out service delivery, data processing, and routing. Core network equipment can correspond to different devices in different communication systems. For example, in a 4G communication system, it may correspond to one or more of the following: Mobility Management Entity (MME), Serving Gateway (S-GW), etc. Similarly, in a 5G communication system, it may correspond to one or more of the following: Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF) network elements, Session Management Function (SMF) network elements, User Plane Function (UPF) network elements, etc. In next-generation or future communication systems, it may correspond to one or more network elements, devices, or entities that provide service support for terminal devices.

[0090] It should be noted that the communication system shown in Figure 1 is not limited to the terminal equipment, access network equipment and core network equipment shown in the figure, but may also include other equipment not shown in the figure. These will not be listed here.

[0091] To support artificial intelligence (AI) technology in wireless networks, AI nodes may be introduced into the network for model training, model inference, and other purposes.

[0092] AI nodes can be deployed in one or more of the following locations within the communication system: access network nodes (RAN nodes), terminal devices, or core network devices. Alternatively, AI nodes can be deployed independently, for example, in a location other than any of the aforementioned devices, such as in the host or cloud server of an over-the-top (OTT) system. AI nodes can communicate with other devices in the communication system, which can be one or more of the following: network devices, terminal devices, or core network elements.

[0093] It is understood that this application does not limit the number of AI nodes. For example, when there are multiple AI nodes, these nodes can be divided based on function, such as different AI nodes being responsible for different functions.

[0094] It can also be understood that AI nodes can be independent devices, or they can be integrated into the same device to achieve different functions. Alternatively, they can be network elements in hardware devices, software functions running on dedicated hardware, or virtualization functions instantiated on a platform (e.g., a cloud platform). This application does not limit the specific form of the aforementioned AI nodes.

[0095] AI nodes can be AI network elements or AI modules.

[0096] Figure 2A is a schematic diagram of a possible application framework in a communication system provided by an embodiment of this application. As shown in Figure 2A, network elements in the communication system are connected through interfaces (e.g., NG, Xn) or air interfaces. These network element nodes, such as core network equipment, access network nodes (RAN nodes), terminals, or one or more devices in operations administration and maintenance (OAM), are equipped with one or more AI modules (only one is shown in Figure 2A for clarity). The access network node can be a single RAN node or can include multiple RAN nodes, for example, including CU and DU. The CU and / or DU can also be equipped with one or more AI modules. The CU can also be split into CU-CP and CU-UP, and one or more AI modules are provided in CU-CP and / or CU-UP.

[0097] AI modules are used to implement corresponding AI functions. AI modules deployed in different network elements can be the same or different. The models of AI modules can achieve different functions depending on the parameter configurations. The models of AI modules can be configured based on one or more of the following parameters: structural parameters (e.g., at least one of the following: number of neural network layers, neural network width, inter-layer connections, neuron weights, neuron activation function, or biases in the activation function), input parameters (e.g., the type and / or dimension of the input parameters), or output parameters (e.g., the type and / or dimension of the output parameters). The biases in the activation function can also be referred to as the biases of the neural network.

[0098] In one example, the neural network mentioned above can be a deep neural network (DNN), a convolutional neural network (CNN), a recurrent neural network (RNN), or a generative adversarial network (GAN).

[0099] Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are artificial neural network architectures with multiple layers of nonlinear transformation units stacked in a hierarchical structure to form deep computational models. Compared to shallow neural networks, deep neural networks have more hidden layers, allowing the network model to capture more complex data structures and higher-level abstract features.

[0100] A CNN is a deep neural network with a convolutional structure. A CNN contains a feature extractor consisting of convolutional layers and subsampling layers. This feature extractor can be viewed as a filter, and the convolution process can be seen as performing convolution between a trainable filter and an input image or a convolutional feature map.

[0101] RNN is a type of recursive neural network that takes sequence data as input, recursively moves along the direction of sequence evolution, and connects all nodes (recurrent units) in a chain-like manner.

[0102] GAN is a deep learning model. It consists of a generator and a discriminator, and is trained through adversarial learning. Its purpose is to estimate the potential distribution of data samples and generate new data samples.

[0103] An AI module can have one or more models. A model can infer an output, which includes one or more parameters. The learning, training, or inference processes of different models can be deployed on different nodes or devices, or they can be deployed on the same node or device.

[0104] Figure 2B is a schematic diagram of another possible application framework in a communication system provided by an embodiment of this application. As shown in Figure 2B, the communication system includes a RAN intelligent controller (RIC). For example, the RIC can be the AI ​​module shown in Figure 2A, used to implement AI-related functions. RICs include near-real-time RICs (near-RT RICs) and non-real-time RICs (non-RT RICs). Non-real-time RICs primarily process non-real-time information, such as data that is not sensitive to latency, with latency in the order of seconds. Real-time RICs primarily process near-real-time information, such as data that is relatively sensitive to latency, with latency in the order of tens of milliseconds.

[0105] Near real-time (NRT) RICs are used for model training and inference. For example, they are used to train AI models and then use those models for inference. NRT RICs can obtain network-side and / or terminal-side information from RAN nodes (e.g., CUs, CU-CPs, CU-UPs, DUs, and / or RUs) and / or terminals. This information can be used as training data or inference data. NRT RICs can deliver inference results to RAN nodes and / or terminals. Inference results can be exchanged between CUs and DUs, and / or between DUs and RUs. For example, a NRT RIC delivers an inference result to a DU, which then forwards it to an RU.

[0106] Non-real-time RICs are also used for model training and inference. For example, they are used to train AI models and then use those models for inference. Non-real-time RICs can obtain network-side and / or terminal-side information from RAN nodes (e.g., CUs, CU-CPs, CU-UPs, DUs, and / or RUs) and / or terminals. This information can be used as training data or inference data, and the inference results can be delivered to RAN nodes and / or terminals. Inference results can be exchanged between CUs and DUs, and / or between DUs and RUs; for example, a non-real-time RIC delivers inference results to a DU, which then forwards them to an RU.

[0107] Near real-time RICs and non-real-time RICs can also be configured as separate network elements. Near real-time RICs and non-real-time RICs can also be part of other devices. For example, near real-time RICs can be set in RAN nodes (e.g., CU, DU), while non-real-time RICs can be set in OAM, cloud servers, core network devices, or other network devices.

[0108] To facilitate understanding of the solutions provided in the embodiments of this application, the relevant concepts involved in the embodiments of this application are introduced below:

[0109] 1. Channel State Information (CSI)

[0110] A CSI report is a type of information reported by a terminal device to describe the current state of the wireless channel. The terminal device determines the content of the CSI report by measuring the channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) associated with the CSI report, and then reports it to the network device. This allows the network device to determine the precoding and modulation coding scheme (MCS) to be used. The CSI report is a crucial step for network devices in obtaining downlink channel information.

[0111] CSI reports may include information such as CSI-RS resource indicator (CRI), channel quality indicator (CQI), rank indicator (RI), precoding matrix indicator (PMI), and layer indicator (LI). Specifically, CRI indicates resource information for the Channel State Reference Signal, CQI indicates channel quality information obtained by the terminal device, RI indicates the recommended transmission layer number for the terminal device, PMI indicates the recommended precoding matrix for the terminal device, and LI indicates transmission information for a specific layer recommended by the terminal device.

[0112] 2. Traditional CSI feedback mechanism

[0113] Traditional CSI feedback can be considered non-AI CSI feedback, including CSI information generation (which can be equivalently understood as source coding) and channel coding. Source coding aims to remove redundant information from the source to improve transmission efficiency, while channel coding aims to increase redundancy to resist channel noise and ensure data transmission reliability.

[0114] Specifically, the network device sends a Radio Resource Control (RRC) level configuration, i.e., a CSI reporting configuration, to the terminal device. This configuration specifies the content to be reported in the CSI report, which may include one or more of the following: CRI, CQI, RI, PMI, and LI. The terminal device determines the content of the CSI report by measuring the CSI-RS signal associated with it. A CSI report can be considered a type of CSI source information. The protocol typically defines the content, length, and quantization method of each field in the CSI report. The content of each field can be considered as the range of information that can be generated from the corresponding part of the CSI report; for example, the range of CQI might be 0–15, the range of RI might be 1–8, and the range of PMI is determined according to the codebook range. Since the protocol defines the value range or quantization method / range of CSI information, the generation process of CSI report can also be understood as the generation of source information determined according to the value range of source information defined by the protocol, or as an encoding process that maps CSI information to the value range defined by the protocol. Since this mapping process also includes quantization, it actually compresses the original CSI information, which is similar to the purpose and process of source encoding. Therefore, in this application, the process of determining the information in the CSI report is understood as a source encoding process.

[0115] For example, as shown in Figure 3A, if CQI, RI, and PMI are configured simultaneously, the terminal device obtains downlink channel information after measuring the CSI-RS signal, which can be specifically represented as an N t ×N r The form of matrix H, N t N represents the number of antenna ports for CSI-RS (which can be understood as the number of transmit antennas). r Let H be the number of receiving antennas of the terminal device. By performing eigenvalue decomposition on H, the terminal device determines the RI (Regional Indicator) that needs to be fed back. Based on RI, the terminal device selects RI feature vectors and quantizes the feature vectors of H using the PMI codebook in the NR protocol, thereby generating the PMI. Furthermore, using downlink channel and interference information (which may or may not be present), the terminal device can further determine the CQI (Concurrent Quality Indicator). Of these three pieces of information, the process of quantizing the feature vectors that need to be fed back (i.e., the original feature vectors) using the codebook can be considered the source coding process of the PMI; while the process of calculating RI and CQI can be considered the source coding process of RI and CQI.

[0116] After generating the above three pieces of information, the terminal device generates the source information of the CSI report according to the filling order of information in the CSI report defined in the protocol. The bit width of each part of the source information has been determined through the previous CSI reporting configuration, meaning it is known to both the network device and the terminal device. After the CSI source information is determined, the terminal device further performs channel coding on the CSI source information, including adding cyclic redundancy check (CRC), polar coding, rate matching, etc., to generate encoded code blocks (i.e., encoded bit streams). The size of the encoded code blocks is determined based on the physical layer resources available for the CSI report. After generating the code blocks, the terminal device further performs modulation and resource mapping, and then sends the CSI report to the network device.

[0117] In NR systems, CSI reports are a type of uplink control information (UCI). UCI information can also include hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledge / non-acknowledge (ACK / NACK) information, scheduling request (SR) information, etc., which are not covered in this application embodiment. This application embodiment mainly considers the case where the UCI information includes CSI reports. For cases where the UCI information also includes other information, this application embodiment does not provide specific details, but the cases are also applicable. If the UCI information includes other information besides CSI reports, the resources available for each part of the information can be determined according to the priority order of the various parts of the UCI information. In this case, the UCI information in this application can be understood as the resources available for the CSI portion of the total UCI resources (i.e., the resources in the UCI resources excluding those occupied by parts with higher priority than CSI).

[0118] In NR systems, UCI information can be transmitted on either the physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) or the physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH). When transmitted via PUCCH, UCI resources are pre-configured by the network devices; when transmitted via PUSCH, UCI resources are determined by dynamically scheduled uplink resources. Furthermore, if the CSI report is large, it can be split into two parts when transmitted via PUSCH, but both parts will contain PMI-related information. The two parts can be independently channel-coded, corresponding to two independent codewords.

[0119] 3. AI-based CSI feedback mechanism (i.e., AI CSI)

[0120] For AI-based CSI feedback, AI CSI feedback is based on the traditional CSI feedback mechanism (i.e., non-AI CSI feedback mechanism). It improves the PMI reporting method based on the codebook in the NR protocol into an AI-based PMI reporting method. Its advantage is that it can improve the PMI feedback accuracy under the same PMI feedback overhead, or reduce the number of PMI feedback bits required under the same PMI feedback accuracy.

[0121] Specifically, as shown in Figure 3B, in AI-based CSI compression feedback, the terminal device uses an AI CSI encoder to compress channel information or channel feature vectors. At the receiving end, an AI CSI decoder paired with the encoder recovers the original channel information or feature vectors. Compared to codebook-based feature vector compression, the feature vector compression recovery method based on an AI CSI encoder and decoder achieves higher channel recovery accuracy. It should be noted that the AI ​​CSI compression feedback method currently only addresses the determination of PMI information and does not include other CSI information such as CRI, RI, CQI, and LI. Therefore, compared to non-AI CSI feedback mechanisms, the change is that the determination of PMI is replaced by the use of an AI model. Furthermore, the AI ​​model is a dual-end model, meaning that the models possessed by the terminal device and the network device must be used in pairs to form a whole, and cannot be used independently.

[0122] Since the introduced AI CSI compressed feedback only modifies the source coding of the channel feature vector and does not involve any changes to the channel coding, as shown in Figure 3C, after using AI CSI compressed feedback (i.e., the AI ​​CSI encoder), its channel coding can still follow the channel coding method in the traditional CSI feedback mechanism (including adding CRC, polar coding, rate matching, etc.). In other words, the compressed AIPMI information only replaces the codebook-based PMI information in the traditional CSI feedback mechanism, then generates an overall CSI report, and finally sends it to the network device after unified channel coding and modulation. Accordingly, the network device can recover the channel feature vector through demodulation, polar decoding, and AI CSI decoder.

[0123] 4. CSI Joint Source-Channel Coding (JSCC)

[0124] Whether it's a traditional CSI feedback mechanism or an AI-based CSI feedback mechanism, the channel coding method is a non-AI approach, such as polar coding. Furthermore, the source coding of the CSI report (generating a CSI report can be considered a source coding process for a CSI report) and channel coding are performed independently, not jointly.

[0125] JSCC is a technique that jointly designs source coding and channel coding to optimize the overall performance of communication systems. Compared to separate and independent coding of the source and channel, JSCC can further improve performance through joint optimization, especially in low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions, where the performance improvement of JSCC compared to non-JSCC methods is more significant.

[0126] Currently, JSCC (Single-Signal Compression) for channel matrix compression has also been introduced into CSI feedback. As shown in Figure 3D, in the JSCC implementation, source coding and channel coding are fused. If the JSCC is AI-based, an AI JSCC encoder can be used to generate the source-channel joint coding result of the channel matrix, which is then modulated and sent to the network device. Correspondingly, the network device can also demodulate and use a corresponding AI JSCC decoder to recover the original source information. It should be noted that JSCC is a dual-end model, and the model on the terminal device side and the model on the network device side also need to be used in pairs. The terminal device and the network device need to have a certain interoperability mechanism before using the model. In this embodiment, it is not limited how the network device learns the JSCC model capability of the terminal device side; the example given is that the network device has the JSCC model capability information of the terminal device side.

[0127] However, the JSCC method currently used in CSI feedback primarily targets information such as channel matrices, channel eigenvectors, or feature matrices. This can be understood as JSCC generating information like channel matrices, channel eigenvectors, or feature matrices in the CSI report (such as PMI information), while other information in the CSI report (such as CRI, CQI, RI, LI, and other indirect channel matrix or feature vector information) is not generated using JSCC (this can be called the non-JSCC part). Therefore, how to transmit the CSI report under these circumstances is a pressing issue that needs to be addressed.

[0128] Therefore, in order to ensure the integrity of CSI report transmission and guarantee communication performance, embodiments of this application provide an information transmission method and a communication device. The information transmission method and communication device provided in these embodiments are further described in detail below.

[0129] Option 1: Figure 4 is a flowchart illustrating an information transmission method provided in an embodiment of this application. As shown in Figure 4, the information transmission method includes the following steps S401 to S403. The method execution subject shown in Figure 4 can be the terminal device and network device mentioned above. Alternatively, the method execution subject shown in Figure 4 can be a chip in the terminal device and a chip in the network device; this embodiment of the application does not impose any limitations. Figure 4 illustrates the method using a terminal device and a network device as examples of the method execution subjects.

[0130] It should be noted that this application focuses on generating information such as the channel matrix, channel eigenvector, or feature matrix (which can be understood as PMI information) in the CSI report using JSCC. It clarifies that other information in the CSI report is not generated using JSCC (which can be understood as using source-channel independent coding). Therefore, in this application, the JSCC portion can also be called the PMI portion, and the non-JSCC portion can also be called the Non-PMI portion. This application uses the JSCC portion and the non-JSCC portion as examples for illustration. Furthermore, while this application refers to the channel matrix, channel eigenvector, or feature matrix as PMI information, other names are also possible and are not limited in this application. Moreover, this application does not limit the source coding method (such as the information quantization process defined by the protocol) and channel coding method (such as polar coding, low-density parity-check (LDPC) coding, etc.) used for the non-JSCC portion.

[0131] It is understood that this application uses terminal devices and network devices as examples to illustrate the execution of the interaction, but this application does not limit the execution subject of the interaction. For example, the method executed by the terminal device in this application can also be implemented by the communication / processing module in the terminal device or the circuit or chip responsible for communication / processing functions in the terminal device (such as a modem chip (also known as a baseband chip), or a SoC chip / SIP chip containing a modem core, or a GPU / AI processor / ASIC); the method executed by the network device in this application can also be implemented by a module (such as a circuit, chip, or chip system) in the network device, or a logical node, logical module, or software that can implement all or part of the functions of the network device.

[0132] S401, The terminal device determines the first resource occupied by the first part of the information.

[0133] S402. The terminal device determines the second resource occupied by the second part of the information based on the second information, the first resource, and the third resource occupied by the first information; wherein, the second information is information related to the encoding of the second part of the information, and the first information includes the first part of the information and the second part of the information.

[0134] S403. The terminal device sends first information to the network device based on the first resource and the second resource; or, the terminal device sends first information to the network device based on the fourth resource and the second resource occupied by the first part of the information; here, the fourth resource is determined based on the second resource and the third resource. Accordingly, the network device receives the first information from the terminal device based on the first resource and the second resource; or, the network device receives the first information from the terminal device based on the fourth resource and the second resource.

[0135] In this embodiment, the network device first sends CSI configuration information (i.e., CSI reporting configuration) to the terminal device via RRC signaling. This configuration information is used to configure the content that the terminal device needs to report in the CSI report, which may include one or more of CRI, CQI, RI, PMI, LI, etc. The terminal device can determine the content of the CSI report by measuring the CSI-RS signal (or understanding it as CSI-RS resource) associated with the CSI report. The content of the CSI report here can be regarded as the first information, and the UCI resource occupied by the first information is the third resource.

[0136] It should be noted that the CSI report may be sent along with other UCI information, such as HARQ ACK / NACK information and scheduling requests (SR). In this case, the total UCI resources include the UCI resources occupied by the first piece of information, as well as the UCI resources occupied by other UCI information. In this application, for the sake of simplicity, it mainly focuses on the case where the UCI information contains only the first piece of information; therefore, the total UCI resources are the UCI resources occupied by the first piece of information. For other cases, the UCI resources available to each part of the information can be determined according to the priority order of the various parts of the UCI information. The total UCI resources can be configured by the network device or determined by the terminal device itself; this is not limited here.

[0137] For example, suppose the UCI information includes first information, a scheduling request (SR), and HARQ ACK information, with the SR and HARQ ACK information having higher priority than the first information. Then, the UCI resources occupied by the SR and HARQ ACK information can be determined first, and then the UCI resources that the first information can occupy can be determined based on the total UCI resources and the UCI resources occupied by the SR and HARQ ACK information. If there are other UCI messages with lower priority than the first information, the remaining UCI resources can be allocated to these lower-priority messages after the UCI resources occupied by the first information have been determined.

[0138] The terminal device can divide the first information into two parts, including the first part of the information and the second part of the information.

[0139] Optionally, the first part of the information here can be generated based on independent source-channel coding, which can be understood as information that does not use joint source-channel coding (such as information on indirect channel matrices or channel eigenvectors like CRI, CQI, RI, LI, etc.), i.e., the non-JSCC part (also known as the Non-PMI part) mentioned above. The second part of the information here can be generated based on joint source-channel coding, which can be understood as information that uses joint source-channel coding, i.e., the JSCC part (also known as the PMI part) mentioned above. For example, the second part of the information includes precoding matrix information (such as PMI information). This can be understood as the second part of the information including information related to the precoding matrix, such as the precoding matrix, channel matrix, precoding vector, channel eigenvector, etc.

[0140] In this way, the CSI report includes both JSCC and non-JSCC components. With both JSCC and non-JSCC components transmitted simultaneously, the CSI report can be submitted using a hybrid transmission method, ensuring the transmission of the non-JSCC component while still obtaining the required JSCC component. This fully utilizes the advantages of JSCC's low signal-to-noise ratio (i.e., enabling JSCC-compatible CSI feedback methods) while also ensuring the integrity of the CSI report transmission and communication performance. It should be noted that the information in the non-JSCC component of this application includes, but is not limited to, CRI, CQI, RI, or LI.

[0141] Since the first part of the information is more important than the second part, it can be assumed that the first part has a higher priority than the second part. A core idea of ​​this scheme is that the terminal device first determines the resources occupied by the first part of the information, and then determines the resources occupied by the second part. This allows the terminal device to send the first and second parts of the information to the network device based on their respective resources, thereby achieving complete transmission of the first part of the information. The following is a detailed explanation of this scheme:

[0142] 1. First, the terminal device needs to determine the first resource occupied by the first part of the information. Specifically, this first resource can be determined using the first code block corresponding to the first part of the information. This first code block can be represented in the following two ways:

[0143] Method 1: The first code block includes third information and a cyclic redundancy check (CRC). The third information includes, but is not limited to, one or more of the following: CRI, CQI, RI, or LI. The third information can be considered determined through a bit sequence generation process, and the CRC is determined through a CRC addition process based on the third information. Optionally, there can be multiple first code blocks. In this case, the third information can be divided into multiple coded blocks, each containing its corresponding CRC. These coded blocks constitute the first code block. For simplicity, unless otherwise specified, this application describes the case where the first code block includes only one coded block, i.e., without code block segmentation.

[0144] Since network devices also need to receive the first information from terminal devices based on the resources occupied by the first part of the information and the resources occupied by the second part of the information, network devices need to align the resources occupied by the first part of the information and the resources occupied by the second part of the information with the terminal devices. Specifically, network devices can determine the resources occupied by the first part of the information themselves based on CSI configuration information; while for the resources occupied by the second part of the information, the terminal devices and network devices can use predefined methods or predefined rules for alignment.

[0145] For example, assuming the third information includes CQI and RI, the sum of the number of bits corresponding to CQI and RI is the number of bits corresponding to the third information. This number of bits can be called the source overhead of the non-JSCC part (which can be understood as the bit length before channel coding). Since CRC is added before channel coding, the number of bits corresponding to the first code block is the sum of the number of bits corresponding to the third information (A) and the number of bits corresponding to the CRC (B), i.e., A+B.

[0146] Method 2: The first code block includes third information, CRC, and first indication information. The first indication information is used to indicate the resources occupied by the second part of the information. The third information includes, but is not limited to, one or more of the following: CRI, CQI, RI, or LI. The third information can be considered to be determined through a bit sequence generation process, the first indication information can be considered to be determined through a bit sequence generation process, and the CRC is determined through a CRC addition process based on the total information including the third information and the first indication information. Optionally, there can be multiple first code blocks. In this case, the third information can be divided into multiple coding blocks, each containing its own corresponding CRC. These coding blocks constitute the first code block. For simplicity, unless otherwise specified, this application describes the case where the first code block includes one coding block, i.e., without code block segmentation.

[0147] Since network devices also need to receive the first information from terminal devices based on the resources occupied by the first part of the information and the resources occupied by the second part of the information, network devices need to align the resources occupied by the first part of the information and the resources occupied by the second part of the information with the terminal devices. Specifically, the network device can determine the resources occupied by the first part of the information based on the CSI configuration information; while the resources occupied by the second part of the information can be indicated to the network device by the terminal device through the first part of the information. Therefore, compared to method one, the first code block corresponding to the first part of the information, in addition to including the third information and CRC, will also have an additional field (i.e., first indication information) to indicate the resources occupied by the second part of the information.

[0148] For example, assuming the third information includes CQI and RI, the sum of the number of bits corresponding to CQI and RI is the number of bits corresponding to the third information. This number of bits can be called the source overhead of the non-JSCC part (which can be understood as the bit length before channel coding). Since the resources occupied by the second part of the information also need to be indicated to the network device through the first indication information, and CRC is added before channel coding, the number of bits corresponding to the first code block is the sum of the number of bits corresponding to the third information (A), the number of bits corresponding to the CRC (B), and the number of bits corresponding to the first indication information (N), i.e., A+B+N.

[0149] It should be noted that for Method 1 and Method 2 mentioned above, the number of bits (i.e., bit width) corresponding to each source information can be determined by the parameters configured in the CSI configuration information of the network device, or it can be predefined by the protocol. For example, the number of bits corresponding to RI can be 2 to 3 bits, and the number of bits corresponding to each CQI can be 4 bits. If the configuration also requires reporting subband CQI, the total CQI overhead will be greater. Currently, NR supports 1 to 2 TB. If the number of transport streams is greater than 4 (i.e., RI>4), there will be two TB. If multiple TBs are involved, the resource overhead of CQI will be even greater.

[0150] The following describes the specific implementation method of the terminal device using the first code block to determine the first resource occupied by the first part of the information. Specifically, either of the following two methods can be used:

[0151] Method 1: The first information is carried in the PUCCH, and the number of resources corresponding to the first resource is determined based on the number of bits corresponding to the first code block, the maximum code rate corresponding to the PUCCH, and the modulation method of the PUCCH.

[0152] In specific implementations, when the first information is carried on the PUCCH for reporting, it can be understood as a way of pre-allocating resources. The air interface resources of the PUCCH can be periodic, and the time and frequency resources are statically allocated.

[0153] For PUCCH, network devices configure the maximum bit rate and total available resources (i.e., total UCI resources) for different PUCCH formats in the RRC. Different PUCCH formats also define the modulation scheme in the protocol. Based on different PUCCH formats, the corresponding modulation scheme and total UCI resources can be determined. Using the maximum bit rate, the minimum resources required for the first part of the information, i.e., the minimum UCI resources required for the non-JSCC part, can be calculated, thereby achieving the goal of prioritizing the transmission of the first part of the information.

[0154] For example, assuming the number of bits corresponding to the first code block is A+B, and the maximum code rate of the PUCCH used for the current first information transmission is α, then after channel coding, the number of bits corresponding to the first part of the information is Then, based on the current PUCCH modulation scheme (i.e., the modulation scheme of the first part of the information), determine the number of bits (i.e., the modulation order) of each modulation symbol as Q. m Then the quantity of resources corresponding to the first resource is: This refers to the number of resource elements (REs) corresponding to the first part of the information. It should be noted that the maximum bitrate is used to calculate the minimum number of resources corresponding to the first part of the information.

[0155] Method 2: The first information is carried on the PUSCH, and the amount of resources corresponding to the first resource is determined based on the number of bits corresponding to the first code block, the code rate offset factor of the first information relative to the PUSCH, the amount of resources occupied by the PUSCH, the code block size and scaling factor corresponding to the data resources on the PUSCH; or, the amount of resources corresponding to the first resource is determined based on the number of bits corresponding to the first code block, the code rate offset factor of the first information relative to the PUSCH, the amount of resources occupied by the PUSCH, the code block size corresponding to the data resources on the PUSCH, the code rate transmitted on the PUSCH, the scaling factor, and the modulation scheme of the PUSCH.

[0156] In practical implementation, when the first information is reported via PUSCH, its air interface resources are dynamically generated, and both time and frequency resources are dynamically indicated. The terminal device can determine the modulation scheme based on the modulation and coding scheme (MCS) of the PUSCH, determine the total UCI resources based on the amount of resources occupied by the PUSCH, the code block size corresponding to the data resources on the PUSCH, and the code rate offset factor, and combine this with the maximum resource ratio (i.e., the scaling factor) of the non-JSCC part configured by the network device to calculate the first resource occupied by the first part of the information, that is, the UCI resources occupied by the non-JSCC part.

[0157] For example, assuming the number of bits corresponding to the first code block is A+B, when the first information is transmitted on the PUSCH, the network device will pre-configure or indicate a rate bias factor, which can define the UCI resources occupied by the non-JSCC part (i.e., the first resources occupied by the first part of the information) to satisfy:

[0158] Formula (1) applies to the case where there are data resources on the PUSCH, and Formula (2) applies to the case where there are no data resources on the PUSCH. M represents the amount of resources occupied by the PUSCH, K represents the code block size corresponding to the data resources on the PUSCH (i.e., the code block size before channel coding), R represents the code rate transmitted on the PUSCH, and Q... m Q represents the number of bits (modulation order) of each modulation symbol corresponding to the modulation scheme of PUSCH (i.e., the modulation scheme of the first part of the information), β represents the code rate offset factor of the first information relative to PUSCH, γ represents a scaling factor pre-configured by the network device, indicating the maximum proportion of resources that can be occupied, and Q Non-PMI This indicates the number of resources corresponding to the first resource. It should be noted that the number of resources can be understood as the number of REs used, or the number of modulation symbols used.

[0159] 2. After the terminal device determines the first resource occupied by the first part of the information, it further determines the second resource occupied by the second part of the information based on the second information, the first resource, and the third resource occupied by the first information.

[0160] In specific implementation, the second information here refers to information related to the encoding of the second part of the information. When the second part of the information supports source-channel joint coding, the encoding-related information carried in the second part of the information can be used to perform source-channel joint coding to determine the second resource occupied by the second part of the information. When the second part of the information does not support source-channel joint coding, the traditional method is used to perform source-channel independent coding on the second part of the information. The traditional method can be considered as first generating source information, such as generating a bit sequence, and then performing processes such as CRC addition and channel coding. Optionally, after generating the source information, a source coding process for the source information can be included.

[0161] The third resource here refers to the total resources occupied by the first information, or the UCI resources occupied by the first information. If the UCI includes information with a higher priority than the first information, then the third resource can be understood as the UCI resources excluding those occupied by information with a higher priority than the first information.

[0162] The terminal device can obtain the third resources occupied by the second information and the first information. The third resources occupied by the second information and the first information can be configured by the network device to the terminal device or determined by the terminal device itself. No limitation is made here.

[0163] Optionally, the second information includes information related to the first model. Here, the first model (such as the JSCC model) can also be understood as an AI model, including AI functions, AI configurations, or AI characteristics; this application does not limit its name. For example, the second information includes the capability information of the first model, and the second part of the information is generated based on the JSCC model. This AI-based feedback mechanism can improve the accuracy of the feedback information.

[0164] It should be noted that, assuming the second part of the information is generated based on the JSCC model, since JSCC is a dual-end model, the model on the terminal device side and the model on the network device side need to be used in pairs. For example, when the second part of the information is generated based on AI JSCC, the network device configures or instructs the terminal device on the AI ​​JSCC model pairing information to be used by the terminal device, thereby enabling the AI ​​JSCC models used by the terminal device and the network device to be used in pairs, realizing joint inference or collaborative inference in a dual-end model scenario, and completing the AI ​​JSCC function. This application does not limit the implementation method of the pairing information. For example, the pairing information can be a model identifier, a pairing identifier, a function identifier, etc.

[0165] In one possible implementation, the terminal device determines the second resource occupied by the second part of the information based on the second information, the first resource, and the third resource occupied by the first information. Specific implementation may include the following steps s11 and s12:

[0166] s11. The terminal device determines the fifth resource based on the first resource and the third resource occupied by the first information.

[0167] s12. The terminal device determines the second resource occupied by the second part of the information based on the second information and the fifth resource.

[0168] This can be understood as follows: based on the first resource occupied by the first part of the information and the UCI resource (i.e., the third resource) occupied by the first information, the terminal device can determine the remaining UCI resource, i.e. the fifth resource.

[0169] For example, suppose the second information includes information related to the first model, where the output dimension of the first model is at the RE level or the modulation symbol level (e.g., the JSCC output is a string of floating-point numbers or a string of complex numbers; in this case, the transmission of each output (each floating-point number or each complex number) of the JSCC can be considered to occupy one RE or use one modulation symbol). The first resource occupied by the first part of the information is Q. Non-PMI If the first piece of information occupies M UCI resources (i.e., the third resource), then the remaining UCI resources (i.e., the fifth resource) are: Y = MQ Non-PMI .

[0170] For example, suppose the second information includes information related to the first model, the output dimension of the first model is at the bit level (i.e., JSCC directly outputs a string of bits), and the first resource occupied by the first part of the information is Q. Non-PMI If the first piece of information occupies M UCI resources (i.e., the third resource), then the remaining UCI resources (i.e., the fifth resource) and the number of transmittable bits are: Y = (MQ) Non-PMI )*Q′ m Among them, Q′ m It can be considered as the number of bits (i.e., modulation order) of each modulation symbol corresponding to the modulation method of the second part of the information.

[0171] It should be noted that the output dimension of the first model can also be understood as the number, length, and size of the output results of the first model. For example, if the output results of the first model are [B1, B2, ..., B...], then... M If the first model has an output dimension of M, it means that the first model can output M values. The output dimension of the first model can also be understood as the number, length, and size of the output results determined by the first model. For example, if the number of output results determined by the first model is N, then the output dimension of the first model can be considered to be N.

[0172] Furthermore, the modulation scheme of the second part of the information can be the same as or different from that of the first part. The modulation scheme can be a non-AI traditional constellation modulation (such as QPSK / 16QAM) or an AI-based constellation modulation (i.e., adjusting constellation irregularities). Regardless of the scheme, the number of bits occupied by each modulation symbol will be determined, for example, 2 bits for QPSK, or 2 bits for each AI constellation modulation symbol. It should be noted that RE and bits can be converted using the modulation order. During calculations, it is sufficient to ensure that the units of all information are the same; it is not limited to bit-level or RE-level. Therefore, for the sake of consistency and simplicity, for the case where the output dimension of the first model is at the bit level, the resource and the number of transmittable bits corresponding to the resource will be equated in the subsequent description of this application, and the two definitions will not be distinguished.

[0173] Optionally, the method further includes: the terminal device obtaining a first threshold, wherein the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource is greater than or equal to the first threshold. Here, the first threshold can be configured by the network device for the terminal device, or it can be a threshold set by the terminal device itself; no limitation is made here. It can be understood that, in order to ensure that JSCC has certain performance, the first threshold can be further used to limit the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource.

[0174] For example, the terminal device will only report the first information if the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource is greater than or equal to the first threshold; if the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource is less than the first threshold, the terminal device will abandon the reporting of the first information, or the terminal device will abandon the reporting of the JSCC part (i.e. the second part of the information) and only report the non-JSCC part of the information (i.e. the first part of the information) to ensure communication performance.

[0175] Furthermore, the terminal device determines the second resource occupied by the second part of the information based on the second information and the remaining UCI resources (i.e., the fifth resource). The specific implementation method is as follows:

[0176] For example, assuming the second information includes information related to the first model, when the output dimension supported by the first model is a continuous value (i.e., the output can be any numerical value), the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource can be equal to the number of resources corresponding to the second resource. Optionally, this continuous value is a positive integer, i.e., any positive integer. For example, the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource is Y, and the number of resources corresponding to the second resource is the numerical value B corresponding to the output dimension of the first model. i At this time, Y = B i .

[0177] For example, suppose the second information includes information related to the first model. When the output dimension supported by the first model is a discrete value, the resource consumption of the fifth resource will be greater than or equal to the resource consumption of the second resource. For instance, the output dimension supported by the first model belongs to a first set, which includes M positive integers (i.e., B1, B2, ..., B...). M M is a positive integer; the amount of resources occupied by the second resource is the X values ​​(B1, B2, ..., B) corresponding to the output dimension of the first model. X The first value in ) (B i ); First value (B) i It can be agreed that the amount of resources (Y) occupied by the fifth resource is less than the amount of resources (Y) occupied by the fifth resource, and the difference between them is the smallest (i.e., it is agreed that B1, B2, ..., B X The X values ​​are the closest to and do not exceed Y; these X values ​​belong to the first set. Therefore, the amount of resources occupied by the second resource at this time is B.i And Y>B i .

[0178] 3. After the terminal device determines the first resource occupied by the first part of the information and the second resource occupied by the second part of the information, it can send the first information to the network device based on their respective resources. This includes the following two scenarios:

[0179] Scenario 1: The terminal device directly sends the first information to the network device based on the first and second resources. Correspondingly, the network device receives the first information from the network device based on the first and second resources.

[0180] In one possible implementation, when the amount of resources occupied by the fifth resource is equal to the amount of resources occupied by the second resource, the terminal device can directly send the first information to the network device based on the first and second resources. Correspondingly, the network device receives the first information from the network device based on the first and second resources.

[0181] This can be understood as follows: after the terminal device determines the first resource occupied by the first part of the information and the second resource occupied by the second part of the information, if the amount of resources occupied by the fifth resource is equal to the amount of resources occupied by the second resource, it means that all the remaining UCI resources (i.e., the fifth resource) have been allocated to the second part of the information. At this time, there are no extra UCI resources in the third resource occupied by the first information. Therefore, the terminal device can modulate the first part of the information and send it to the network device based on the first resource occupied by the first part of the information; at the same time, it can also modulate the second part of the information and send it to the network device based on the second resource occupied by the second part of the information, thereby realizing the complete transmission of the first information.

[0182] Specifically, when the modulation methods of the first part of the information and the second part of the information are the same, the first part of the information and the second part of the information can be modulated independently or uniformly. When the modulation methods of the first part of the information and the second part of the information are different, the first part of the information and the second part of the information need to be modulated independently.

[0183] Optionally, assuming the modulation scheme of the first part of the information is the same as that of the second part of the information, the first information can be obtained by concatenating codewords based on the first and second parts of the information. The codeword concatenation can be defined by protocol as sequential concatenation, such as "[first part of information, second part of information]", but other concatenation methods can also be used, which are not limited here. By modulating the first information, unified modulation of the first and second parts of the information can be achieved, thereby helping to save power consumption.

[0184] In one possible scenario, network devices can predict potential resource allocation scenarios through implementation, ensuring precise allocation so that the quantity of resources corresponding to the fifth resource equals the quantity of resources corresponding to the second resource. For example, the network device calculates the first resource and, based on the output dimension supported by the first model, calculates the condition Y=B. i The resource quantity corresponding to the second resource in the case is such that the resource quantity corresponding to the fifth resource is equal to the sum of the resource quantity corresponding to the first resource and the resource quantity corresponding to the second resource.

[0185] Scenario 2: The terminal device sends the first information to the network device based on the fourth and second resources occupied by the first part of the information. Correspondingly, the network device receives the first information from the network device based on the fourth and second resources. Here, the fourth resource is determined based on the second and third resources.

[0186] In one possible implementation, if the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource is greater than the number of resources corresponding to the second resource, the terminal device sends the first information to the network device based on the fourth and second resources occupied by the first part of the information. Correspondingly, the network device receives the first information from the network device based on the fourth and second resources.

[0187] This can be understood as follows: after the terminal device determines the first resource occupied by the first part of information and the second resource occupied by the second part of information, if the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource is greater than the number of resources corresponding to the second resource, it means that the remaining UCI resources (i.e. the fifth resource) have not been fully allocated to the second part of information. At this time, there are still excess UCI resources in the third resource occupied by the first information.

[0188] In one alternative approach, to ensure sufficient resource allocation for the first part of the information and fully utilize UCI resources, the resources allocated to the first part of the information can be readjusted based on the third and second resources to obtain a fourth resource. The terminal device can then modulate the first part of the information and send it to the network device using the fourth resource allocated to it; simultaneously, it can modulate the second part of the information and send it to the network device using the second resource allocated to it, thereby achieving complete transmission of the first part of the information.

[0189] For example, the second resource occupied by the second part of the information is B. i The third resource occupied by the first piece of information is M, and both the second and third resources are at the RE level. Therefore, the fourth resource occupied by the redefined first part of information is MB. i .

[0190] For example, the second resource occupied by the second part of the information is B.i The number of bits (i.e., modulation order) of each modulation symbol corresponding to the modulation scheme of the second part of the information is Q′. m The third resource occupied by the first piece of information is M; and the second resource is at the bit level, the third resource is at the RE level, then the fourth resource occupied by the redefined first part of information is:

[0191] In another alternative approach, if there are UCI messages with lower priority in addition to the first information, and the amount of resources occupied by the fifth resource is greater than the amount of resources occupied by the second resource, it means that the remaining UCI resources (i.e., the fifth resource) have not been fully allocated to the second part of the information. In this case, there are still extra UCI resources in the third resource occupied by the first information, and the extra UCI resources can also be allocated to the UCI messages with lower priority.

[0192] Specifically, when the modulation methods of the first part of the information and the second part of the information are the same, the first part of the information and the second part of the information can be modulated independently or uniformly. When the modulation methods of the first part of the information and the second part of the information are different, the first part of the information and the second part of the information need to be modulated independently.

[0193] Optionally, assuming the modulation scheme of the first part of the information is the same as that of the second part of the information, the first information can be obtained by concatenating codewords based on the first and second parts of the information. The codeword concatenation can be defined by protocol as sequential concatenation, such as "[first part of information, second part of information]", but other concatenation methods can also be used, which are not limited here. By modulating the first information, unified modulation of the first and second parts of the information can be achieved, thereby helping to save power consumption.

[0194] Based on the above, in one possible implementation, the method further includes: the terminal device sending fourth information, which is information related to source-channel joint coding. This can be understood as the terminal device reporting its ability to support source-channel joint coding to the network device, and also reporting other information related to source-channel joint coding, such as the capability information of the first model, including but not limited to the output dimension capability categories supported by the first model (output dimension is a continuous value or a discrete value), the number of supported output dimensions (size of the output dimension), whether the supported output is bit-level or RE-level, the supported first model input type (channel matrix or channel feature vector, etc.) and input size (number of transmit / receive antenna ports, rank size), the supported first model processing delay (inference delay), and the number of computing process units (CPUs) occupied by the supported first model processing.

[0195] Additionally, it should be noted that if the first part of the information can be further divided into multiple sub-information, in order to ensure that each sub-information can be transmitted completely, the resources occupied by the second part of the information need to be limited. That is, the second resource occupied by the second part of the information should be less than or equal to a second threshold. Here, the second threshold can be configured by the network device or determined by the terminal device itself, and is not limited here.

[0196] For example, the first part of the information includes sub-information 1 and sub-information 2. Sub-information 1 has a higher priority than the second part of the information, and the second part of the information has a higher priority than sub-information 2. Therefore, after allocating resources to sub-information 1, it is necessary to allocate resources to the second part of the information. However, in order to ensure that there are enough resources to allocate when allocating resources to sub-information 2 later, it is necessary to ensure that the resources occupied by the second part of the information are less than or equal to the second threshold, so as to limit the upper limit of the remaining UCI resources occupied by the second part of the information.

[0197] As can be seen, based on the method described in Figure 4, the CSI report (i.e., the first information) is divided into two parts: the first part and the second part. The terminal device can prioritize allocating the UCI resources occupied by the CSI report (i.e., the third resources occupied by the first information) to the first part (i.e., the non-JSCC part, also known as the Non-PMI part), and then allocate the corresponding resources to the second part (i.e., the JSCC part, also known as the PMI part) according to the remaining resources. This ensures that the CSI report includes both the JSCC part and the non-JSCC part. When the JSCC part and the non-JSCC part are transmitted simultaneously, the transmission of the non-JSCC part is guaranteed, and the required JSCC part can also be obtained. This fully utilizes the advantages of JSCC under low signal-to-noise ratio (i.e., enabling JSCC-compatible CSI feedback methods) and also ensures the integrity of CSI report transmission and communication performance.

[0198] Option 2: Figure 5 is a flowchart illustrating an information transmission method provided in an embodiment of this application. As shown in Figure 5, the information transmission method includes the following steps S501 to S503. The method execution subject shown in Figure 5 can be the terminal device and network device mentioned above. Alternatively, the method execution subject shown in Figure 5 can be a chip in the terminal device and a chip in the network device; this embodiment of the application does not impose any limitations. Figure 5 illustrates the method using a terminal device and a network device as examples of the method execution subjects.

[0199] It should be noted that this application focuses on generating information such as the channel matrix, channel eigenvector, or feature matrix in the CSI report (which can be understood as PMI information) using JSCC. It clarifies the use of other information in the CSI report that is not generated using JSCC (which can be understood as using source-channel independent coding). Therefore, in this application, the JSCC portion can also be called the PMI portion, and the non-JSCC portion can also be called the Non-PMI portion. This application uses the JSCC portion and the non-JSCC portion as examples for illustration. Furthermore, while this application refers to the channel matrix, channel eigenvector, or feature matrix as PMI information, other names are also possible and are not limited in this application. Moreover, this application does not limit the source coding method (such as the information quantization process defined by the protocol) and channel coding method (such as polar coding, LDPC coding, etc.) used for the non-JSCC portion.

[0200] It is understood that this application uses terminal devices and network devices as examples to illustrate the execution of the interaction, but this application does not limit the execution subject of the interaction. For example, the method executed by the terminal device in this application can also be implemented by the communication / processing module in the terminal device or the circuit or chip responsible for communication / processing functions in the terminal device (such as a modem chip (also known as a baseband chip), or a SoC chip / SIP chip containing a modem core, or a GPU / AI processor / ASIC); the method executed by the network device in this application can also be implemented by a module (such as a circuit, chip, or chip system) in the network device, or a logical node, logical module, or software that can implement all or part of the functions of the network device.

[0201] S501, the network device sends first configuration information to the terminal device, the first configuration information being used to configure the initial resources occupied by the second part of the information. Accordingly, the terminal device receives the first configuration information from the network device.

[0202] S502. The terminal device determines the sixth resource occupied by the first part of the information based on the initial resources and the third resources occupied by the first information.

[0203] S503. The terminal device sends first information to the network device based on the initial resource and the sixth resource; or, the terminal device sends first information to the network device based on the seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information and the eighth resource occupied by the first part of the information; here, the seventh resource is less than the initial resource, and the eighth resource is determined based on the seventh resource and the third resource. Accordingly, the network device receives the first information from the terminal device based on the initial resource and the sixth resource; or, the network device receives the first information from the terminal device based on the initial resource and the sixth resource.

[0204] In this embodiment, the network device first sends CSI configuration information (i.e., CSI reporting configuration) to the terminal device via RRC signaling. This configuration information is used to configure the content that the terminal device needs to report in the CSI report, which may include one or more of CRI, CQI, RI, PMI, LI, etc. The terminal device can determine the content of the CSI report by measuring the CSI-RS signal (or understanding it as CSI-RS resource) associated with the CSI report. The content of the CSI report here can be regarded as the first information, and the UCI resource occupied by the first information is the third resource.

[0205] It should be noted that the CSI report may be sent along with other UCI information, such as HARQ ACK / NACK information and scheduling requests (SR). In this case, the total UCI resources include the UCI resources occupied by the first piece of information, as well as the UCI resources occupied by other UCI information. In this application, for the sake of simplicity, it mainly focuses on the case where the UCI information contains only the first piece of information; therefore, the total UCI resources are the UCI resources occupied by the first piece of information. For other cases, the UCI resources available to each part of the information can be determined according to the priority order of the various parts of the UCI information. The total UCI resources can be configured by the network device or determined by the terminal device itself; this is not limited here.

[0206] For example, suppose the UCI information includes first information, a scheduling request (SR), and HARQ ACK information, with the SR and HARQ ACK information having higher priority than the first information. Then, the UCI resources occupied by the SR and HARQ ACK information can be determined first, and then the UCI resources that the first information can occupy can be determined based on the total UCI resources and the UCI resources occupied by the SR and HARQ ACK information. If there are other UCI messages with lower priority than the first information, the remaining UCI resources can be allocated to these lower-priority messages after the UCI resources for the first information have been determined.

[0207] The terminal device can divide the first information into two parts, including the first part of the information and the second part of the information.

[0208] Optionally, the first part of the information here can be generated based on independent source-channel coding, which can be understood as information that does not use joint source-channel coding (such as information on indirect channel matrices or channel eigenvectors like CRI, CQI, RI, LI, etc.), i.e., the non-JSCC part (also known as the Non-PMI part) mentioned above. The second part of the information here can be generated based on joint source-channel coding, which can be understood as information that uses joint source-channel coding, i.e., the JSCC part (also known as the PMI part) mentioned above. For example, the second part of the information includes precoding matrix information (such as PMI information). This can be understood as the second part of the information including information related to the precoding matrix, such as the precoding matrix, channel matrix, precoding vector, channel eigenvector, etc.

[0209] In this way, the CSI report includes both JSCC and non-JSCC components. With both JSCC and non-JSCC components transmitted simultaneously, the CSI report can be submitted using a hybrid transmission method, ensuring the transmission of the non-JSCC component while still obtaining the required JSCC component. This fully utilizes the advantages of JSCC's low signal-to-noise ratio (i.e., enabling JSCC-compatible CSI feedback methods) while also ensuring the integrity of the CSI report transmission and communication performance. It should be noted that the information in the non-JSCC component of this application includes, but is not limited to, CRI, CQI, RI, or LI.

[0210] Assuming the first part of the information has a higher priority than the second part, a core idea of ​​this scheme is to first configure the initial resources occupied by the second part of the information, and then adaptively adjust the resources occupied by the first part of the information. This allows terminal devices to send both the first and second parts of the information to the network device based on their respective resources, thereby achieving complete transmission of the first part of the information. The scheme is described in detail below:

[0211] 1. First, the network device sends first configuration information to the terminal device, which is used to configure the initial resources occupied by the second part of the information.

[0212] In one possible implementation, the method further includes: the network device sending second configuration information to the terminal device, the second configuration information being used to configure the maximum bit rate corresponding to the first part of the information; correspondingly, the terminal device receiving the second configuration information from the network device. Alternatively, the first configuration information is also used to configure the maximum bit rate corresponding to the first part of the information. That is, in addition to configuring the initial resources occupied by the second part of the information to the terminal device, the network device can also configure the maximum bit rate corresponding to the first part of the information to the terminal device.

[0213] In one possible implementation, the second part of the information is related to the first model. Here, the first model (such as the JSCC model) can also be understood as an AI model, encompassing AI functions, AI configurations, or AI characteristics; this application does not limit its name. For example, the second part of the information is generated based on the JSCC model. This AI-based feedback mechanism can improve the accuracy of the feedback information.

[0214] It should be noted that, assuming the second part of the information is generated based on the JSCC model, since JSCC is a dual-end model, the model on the terminal device side and the model on the network device side need to be used in pairs. For example, when the second part of the information is generated based on AI JSCC, the network device configures or instructs the terminal device on the AI ​​JSCC model pairing information to be used by the terminal device, thereby enabling the AI ​​JSCC models used by the terminal device and the network device to be used in pairs, realizing joint inference or collaborative inference in a dual-end model scenario, and completing the AI ​​JSCC function. This application does not limit the implementation method of the pairing information. For example, the pairing information can be a model identifier, a pairing identifier, a function identifier, etc.

[0215] 2. Further, the terminal device determines the sixth resource occupied by the first part of the information based on the initial resources occupied by the second part of the information and the third resources occupied by the first part of the information.

[0216] For example, if the initial resource occupied by the second part of the information is X, the third resource occupied by the first part of the information is M, and both the initial resource and the third resource are at the RE level, then the sixth resource occupied by the first part of the information is: T = MX.

[0217] For example, the initial resource occupied by the second part of the information is X, the third resource occupied by the first part of the information is M, and the number of bits (i.e., the modulation order) of each modulation symbol corresponding to the modulation method of the first part of the information is Q. m The number of bits (i.e., modulation order) of each modulation symbol corresponding to the modulation scheme of the second part of the information is Q′. m Furthermore, the third resource is at the RE level, the initial resource is at the bit level, and the sixth resource is at the bit level.

[0218] If the modulation scheme of the first part of the information is the same as that of the first part of the information, then the sixth resource occupied by the first part of the information is: T = M * Q′ m -X.

[0219] If the modulation scheme of the first part of the information is different from that of the first part of the information, then first calculate the number of available REs for the first part of the information, i.e., G = MX * Q. m Then determine the number of bits occupied by the second part of the information, i.e., T = G * Q′ m .

[0220] It should be noted that RE and bits can be converted using modulation order. During calculations, it is sufficient to ensure that the units of all information are the same; there is no limitation on whether it is bit-level or RE-level. Therefore, for the sake of consistency and simplicity, for the case where the output dimension of the first model is at the bit level, this application will use "resource" and "the number of transmittable bits corresponding to the resource" as equivalent in the following description, and the two definitions will not be distinguished.

[0221] 3. After the terminal device determines the initial resources occupied by the second part of the information and the sixth resource occupied by the first part of the information, it can send the first information to the network device based on their respective resources. This includes the following two scenarios:

[0222] Scenario 1: The terminal device directly sends the first information to the network device based on the initial resource and the sixth resource. Correspondingly, the network device receives the first information from the network device based on the initial resource and the sixth resource.

[0223] In one possible implementation, the method further includes: determining the first code rate corresponding to the first part of the information based on the sixth resource, the first code block corresponding to the first part of the information, and the modulation scheme of the first part of the information.

[0224] The first code block can be represented in two ways, which can be referred to in the description of the first code block in Scheme 1 above (i.e., Scheme 1 and Scheme 2), and will not be elaborated here.

[0225] Method a: The first code block includes third information and CRC, the third information including but not limited to one or more of the following: CRI, CQI, RI, or LI.

[0226] Method b: The first code block includes third information, CRC and first indication information; the first indication information is used to indicate the resources occupied by the second part of the information, and the third information includes, but is not limited to, one or more of the following: CRI, CQI, RI, or LI.

[0227] In the specific implementation, the first bitrate corresponding to the first part of information determined by the terminal device can be understood as the actual bitrate corresponding to the first part of information, and the specific calculation method satisfies:

[0228] Where T represents the sixth resource occupied by the first part of the information, (A+B) represents the first code block corresponding to the first part of the information, and Q m This indicates the number of bits (i.e., modulation order) of each modulation symbol corresponding to the modulation method of the first part of the information.

[0229] When the first bit rate is less than or equal to the maximum bit rate, it means that the first part of the information meets the bit rate requirements. The terminal device can directly modulate the first part of the information and send it to the network device based on the sixth resource occupied by the first part of the information. At the same time, it can also modulate the second part of the information and send it to the network device based on the initial resource occupied by the second part of the information, thereby realizing the complete transmission of the first information.

[0230] Specifically, when the modulation methods of the first part of the information and the second part of the information are the same, the first part of the information and the second part of the information can be modulated independently or uniformly. When the modulation methods of the first part of the information and the second part of the information are different, the first part of the information and the second part of the information need to be modulated independently.

[0231] Optionally, assuming the modulation scheme of the first part of the information is the same as that of the second part of the information, the first information can be obtained by concatenating codewords based on the first and second parts of the information. The codeword concatenation can be defined by protocol as sequential concatenation, such as "[first part of information, second part of information]", but other concatenation methods can also be used, which are not limited here. By modulating the first information, unified modulation of the first and second parts of the information can be achieved, thereby helping to save power consumption.

[0232] Scenario 2: The terminal device sends first information to the network device based on the seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information and the eighth resource occupied by the first part of the information; here, the seventh resource is less than the initial resource, and the eighth resource is determined based on the seventh resource and the third resource. Accordingly, the network device receives the first information from the network device based on the seventh resource and the eighth resource.

[0233] In one possible implementation, the method further includes: determining the first code rate corresponding to the first part of the information based on the sixth resource, the first code block corresponding to the first part of the information, and the modulation scheme of the first part of the information.

[0234] The first code block can be represented in two ways, which can be referred to in the description of the first code block in Scheme 1 above (i.e., Scheme 1 and Scheme 2), and will not be elaborated here.

[0235] Method a: The first code block includes third information and CRC, the third information including but not limited to one or more of the following: CRI, CQI, RI, or LI.

[0236] Method b: The first code block includes third information, CRC and first indication information; the first indication information is used to indicate the resources occupied by the second part of the information, and the third information includes, but is not limited to, one or more of the following: CRI, CQI, RI, or LI.

[0237] In the specific implementation, the first bit rate corresponding to the first part of information determined by the terminal device can be understood as the actual bit rate corresponding to the first part of information. The specific calculation method can be referred to Case 1 above, which will not be elaborated here.

[0238] If the first bit rate is less than or equal to the maximum bit rate, it indicates that the first part of the information does not meet the bit rate requirements, and the resources occupied by the second part of the information need to be reduced, resulting in the seventh resource (that is, the seventh resource is less than the initial resource). Similarly, since the resources occupied by the second part of the information are reduced, the resources occupied by the first part of the information will correspondingly increase, resulting in the eighth resource. The terminal device can then modulate the first part of the information and send it to the network device based on the eighth resource occupied by the first part of the information; at the same time, it can also modulate the second part of the information and send it to the network device based on the seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information, thereby achieving the complete transmission of the first information.

[0239] Specifically, the seventh resource occupied by the redefined second part of the information can be implemented in either of the following two ways:

[0240] Method (1): The network device configures the seventh resource to the terminal device, or the step size for adjusting the initial resource.

[0241] A. The network device sends third configuration information to the terminal device, which is used to configure the seventh resource. Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the third configuration information from the network device.

[0242] This third configuration information can be used to configure one or more seventh resources.

[0243] For example, assuming the third configuration information includes X1, X2, and X3, the seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information can be any one of the resources included in the third configuration information.

[0244] For example, if the third configuration information includes X1, then the seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information is X1.

[0245] B. The first configuration information or the second configuration information is also used to configure the seventh resource.

[0246] C. The network device sends third configuration information to the terminal device. This third configuration information is used to configure the first step length, and the seventh resource is determined based on the initial resource and the first step length. Accordingly, the terminal device receives the third configuration information from the network device.

[0247] Optionally, the length of this first step is related to the capabilities of the first model. This can be understood as needing to adjust the resources used for the second part of the information within the capabilities of the first model.

[0248] For example, assuming the initial resource occupied by the second part of the information is X, and the first step length is R1, then the seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information is: X′=Xn*R1. Here, n represents the number of adjustments, and n is a positive integer. This can be understood as the resource occupied by the second part of the information after n adjustments satisfying the condition that the first bitrate is less than or equal to the maximum bitrate.

[0249] D. The first configuration information or the second configuration information is also used to configure the first step length, and the seventh resource is determined based on the initial resource and the first step length.

[0250] Method (2): The terminal device determines the seventh resource to be adjusted by itself, or the step size for adjusting the initial resource.

[0251] A. The terminal device determines the seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information according to its own implementation, and only needs to ensure that the seventh resource is less than the initial resource.

[0252] B. The terminal device determines the seventh resource based on the initial resource and the first step length.

[0253] Optionally, the length of this first step is related to the capabilities of the first model. This can be understood as needing to adjust the resources used by the second part of the information within the capabilities of the first model. Here, the length of the first step is determined by the terminal device itself.

[0254] For example, assuming the initial resource occupied by the second part of the information is X, and the first step length is R1, then the seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information is: X′=Xn*R1. Here, n represents the number of adjustments, and n is a positive integer. This can be understood as the resource occupied by the second part of the information after n adjustments satisfying the condition that the first bitrate is less than or equal to the maximum bitrate.

[0255] Furthermore, the redefined eighth resource occupied by the first part of the information is based on the seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information and the total resources occupied by the first part of the information (i.e., the third resource). For example, if the seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information is X′, and the total resources occupied by the first part of the information (i.e., the third resource) are M, then the eighth resource occupied by the first part of the information is: T′=MX′. The seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information can be a resource that has been adjusted once or multiple times to make the first bitrate less than or equal to the maximum bitrate.

[0256] Specifically, when the modulation methods of the first part of the information and the second part of the information are the same, the first part of the information and the second part of the information can be modulated independently or uniformly. When the modulation methods of the first part of the information and the second part of the information are different, the first part of the information and the second part of the information need to be modulated independently.

[0257] Optionally, assuming the modulation scheme of the first part of the information is the same as that of the second part of the information, the first information can be obtained by concatenating codewords based on the first and second parts of the information. The codeword concatenation can be defined by protocol as sequential concatenation, such as "[first part of information, second part of information]", but other concatenation methods can also be used, which are not limited here. By modulating the first information, unified modulation of the first and second parts of the information can be achieved, thereby helping to save power consumption.

[0258] Based on the above, in one possible implementation, the method further includes: the terminal device sending fourth information, which is information related to source-channel joint coding. This can be understood as the terminal device reporting its ability to support source-channel joint coding to the network device, and also reporting other information related to source-channel joint coding, such as the capability information of the first model, including but not limited to the resource adjustment step size supported by the first model, the output dimension capability category supported by the first model (output dimension is a continuous value or a discrete value), the number of supported output dimensions (size of the output dimension), whether the supported output is bit-level or RE-level, the supported first model input type (channel matrix or channel feature vector, etc.) and input size (number of transmit / receive antenna ports, rank size), the supported first model processing delay (inference delay), and the number of computing units (CPUs) occupied by the supported first model processing, etc.

[0259] Additionally, it should be noted that if the first part of the information can be further divided into multiple sub-information, in order to ensure that each sub-information can be transmitted completely, the resources occupied by the second part of the information need to be limited. That is, the resources occupied by the second part of the information should be less than or equal to a second threshold. Here, the second threshold can be configured by the network device or determined by the terminal device itself, and is not limited here.

[0260] For example, the first part of the information includes sub-information 1 and sub-information 2. Sub-information 1 has a higher priority than the second part of the information, and the second part of the information has a higher priority than sub-information 2. Therefore, after allocating the resources occupied by sub-information 1, it is necessary to allocate the resources occupied by the second part of the information. However, in order to ensure that there are enough resources to allocate when allocating the resources of sub-information 2 in the future, it is necessary to ensure that the resources occupied by the second part of the information are less than or equal to the second threshold, thereby limiting the upper limit of the remaining UCI resources occupied by the second part of the information.

[0261] As can be seen, based on the method described in Figure 5, the CSI report (i.e., the first information) is divided into two parts: the first part and the second part. Network devices can prioritize allocating initial resources to the terminal devices for the second part (i.e., the JSCC part, also known as the PMI part) to ensure its basic performance. While ensuring the basic performance of the second part, the terminal devices can flexibly allocate resources to the first part (i.e., the non-JSCC part, also known as the Non-PMI part) while simultaneously ensuring its performance. When the CSI report includes both the JSCC and non-JSCC parts, and both are transmitted simultaneously, the transmission of the non-JSCC part is guaranteed, and the required JSCC part can also be obtained. This fully utilizes the advantages of JSCC's low signal-to-noise ratio (i.e., enabling a JSCC-compatible CSI feedback method) while also ensuring the integrity of the CSI report transmission and communication performance.

[0262] The apparatus provided in the embodiments of this application will be described below.

[0263] This application divides the device into functional modules according to the above method embodiments. For example, each function can be divided into its own functional modules, or two or more functions can be integrated into one processing module. The integrated modules can be implemented in hardware or as software functional modules. It should be noted that the module division in this application is illustrative and only represents one logical functional division; other division methods may be used in actual implementation. The device of the embodiment of this application will be described in detail below with reference to Figures 6 to 8.

[0264] Figure 6 is a schematic diagram of a communication device provided in an embodiment of this application. As shown in Figure 6, the communication device includes a processing module 601 and a transceiver module 602. The transceiver module 602 can implement corresponding communication functions, and the processing module 601 is used to implement corresponding processing functions. For example, the transceiver module 602 can also be called an interface, a communication interface, or a communication module, etc.

[0265] In some embodiments of this application, the communication device can be used to perform the actions performed by the terminal device in the above method embodiments. In this case, the communication device can be the terminal device itself or a chip or functional module configurable within the terminal device. The transceiver module 602 is used to perform transceiver-related operations of the terminal device in the above method embodiments, and the processing module 601 is used to perform processing-related operations of the terminal device in the above method embodiments.

[0266] For example, the processing module 601 can be used to determine the first resource occupied by the first part of the information;

[0267] The processing module 601 can also be used to determine the second resource occupied by the second part of the information based on the second information, the first resource, and the third resource occupied by the first information; wherein the second information is information related to the encoding of the second part of the information, and the first information includes the first part of the information and the second part of the information;

[0268] The transceiver module 602 can be used to send first information based on the first resource and the second resource; or, based on the fourth resource and the second resource occupied by the first part of the information, to send the first information; where the fourth resource is determined based on the second resource and the third resource.

[0269] For example, the transceiver module 602 can be used to receive first configuration information, which is used to configure the initial resources occupied by the second part of the information;

[0270] The processing module 601 can be used to determine the sixth resource occupied by the first part of information based on the initial resources and the third resources occupied by the first information; wherein the first information includes the first part of information and the second part of information;

[0271] The transceiver module 602 can also be used to send first information based on the initial resource and the sixth resource; or, based on the seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information and the eighth resource occupied by the first part of the information; here the seventh resource is less than the initial resource, and the eighth resource is determined based on the seventh resource and the third resource.

[0272] The embodiments of this application and the method embodiments shown above are based on the same concept and have the same technical effects. For the specific principles, please refer to the description of the embodiments shown above, which will not be repeated here.

[0273] For example, the transceiver module 602 may include a radio frequency module, an antenna module, etc. For example, the transceiver module 602 may include a pin module, etc.

[0274] Optionally, in the above embodiments, the communication device may further include a storage module, which can be used to store instructions and / or data. The processing module 601 can read the instructions and / or data in the storage module to enable the device to implement the aforementioned method embodiments. For example, the storage module may also store resources occupied by the first part of the information, resources occupied by the second part of the information, a first threshold, first information, the maximum bit rate corresponding to the first part of the information, first indication information, first step length, etc., as shown above.

[0275] For details regarding the terms or steps in each of the above embodiments, such as CSI, JSCC, CSI feedback, PMI, CRI, RI, CQI, and LI, please refer to the descriptions in the above method embodiments. They will not be detailed here.

[0276] The specific descriptions of the transceiver module and processing module shown in the above embodiments are merely examples. For the specific functions or execution steps of the transceiver module and processing module, please refer to the above method embodiments, which will not be described in detail here.

[0277] The apparatus of the embodiments of this application has been described above. The possible product forms of the apparatus are described below. Any product possessing the functions of the apparatus described in FIG. 6 above falls within the protection scope of the embodiments of this application. The following description is merely illustrative and does not limit the product form of the apparatus of the embodiments of this application to this.

[0278] In one possible implementation, in the communication device shown in FIG6, the processing module 601 can be one or more processing circuits, and the transceiver module 602 can be a transceiver circuit. Alternatively, the transceiver module 602 can also be a transmitting module and a receiving module. The transmitting module can be a transmitting circuit, and the receiving module can be a receiving circuit, which are integrated into one device, such as a transceiver circuit. In the embodiments of this application, the processing circuit and the transceiver circuit can be coupled, etc. The connection method of the processing circuit and the transceiver circuit is not limited in the embodiments of this application. In the process of performing the above method, the process of sending information in the above method can be the process of the processing circuit outputting the above information. When outputting the above information, the processing circuit outputs the above information to the transceiver circuit so that the transceiver circuit can transmit (or output). After the above information is output by the processing circuit, it may need to undergo other processing before reaching the transceiver circuit. Similarly, the process of receiving information in the above method can be the process of the processing circuit receiving the input above information. When the processing circuit receives the input information, the transceiver circuit receives the above information and inputs it into the processing circuit. Furthermore, after the transceiver circuit receives the aforementioned information, the information may need to undergo further processing before being input into the processing circuit.

[0279] Figure 7 is a schematic diagram of another communication device provided in an embodiment of this application. As shown in Figure 7, the communication device 70 includes one or more processing circuits 720 and transceiver circuits 710.

[0280] In some embodiments of this application, the communication device can be used to execute the steps, methods, or functions performed by the terminal device described above. For example, the processing circuit 720 can be used to execute the functions or steps implemented by the processing module 601 shown in FIG. 6, and the transceiver circuit 710 can be used to execute the functions or steps implemented by the transceiver module 602 shown in FIG. 6. For a detailed description of the processing circuit 720 and the transceiver circuit 710, please refer to FIG. 6 or the method embodiments shown above, which will not be described in detail here.

[0281] In other embodiments of this application, the communication device is used to perform the steps, methods, or functions performed by the network device described above. For example, the processing circuit 720 can be used to perform the functions or steps implemented by the processing module 601 shown in FIG. 6, and the transceiver circuit 710 can be used to perform the functions or steps implemented by the transceiver module 602 shown in FIG. 6. Detailed descriptions of the processing circuit 720 and the transceiver circuit 710 can be found in FIG. 6 or the method embodiments shown above, and will not be elaborated further here.

[0282] For example, the processing circuitry may be one or more processors, or all or part of the circuitry within one or more processors. The transceiver circuitry may be a transceiver, an input / output circuit, or an interface circuit, etc.

[0283] For example, in various implementations of the apparatus shown in FIG7, the transceiver circuitry may include a receiver for performing a receiving function (or operation) and a transmitter for performing a transmitting function (or operation). The transceiver circuitry is also used to communicate with other devices / appliances via a transmission medium.

[0284] Optionally, the communication device 70 may further include one or more memories 730 for storing program instructions and / or data. The memories 730 are coupled to the processing circuitry 720. The coupling in this embodiment is an indirect coupling or communication connection between devices, units, or modules, and can be electrical, mechanical, or other forms, used for information exchange between devices, units, or modules. The processing circuitry 720 may operate in conjunction with the memories 730. The processing circuitry 720 may execute the program instructions stored in the memories 730. Optionally, at least one of the aforementioned memories may be included in the processing circuitry.

[0285] This application embodiment does not limit the specific connection medium between the transceiver circuit 710, processing circuit 720, and memory 730. In this application embodiment, the memory 730, processing circuit 720, and transceiver circuit 710 are connected via a bus 740 in Figure 7. The bus is represented by a thick line in Figure 7. The connection methods between other components are only for illustrative purposes and are not intended to be limiting. The bus can be divided into address bus, data bus, control bus, etc. For ease of illustration, only one thick line is used in Figure 7, but this does not mean that there is only one bus or one type of bus.

[0286] In the embodiments of this application, the processing circuit may be a general-purpose processing circuit, a digital signal processing circuit, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device, a discrete gate or transistor logic device, a discrete hardware component, etc., and can implement or execute the various methods, steps, and logic block diagrams disclosed in the embodiments of this application. The general-purpose processing circuit may be a microprocessor circuit or any conventional processing circuit, etc. The steps of the methods disclosed in the embodiments of this application can be directly manifested as being executed by a hardware processing circuit, or being executed by a combination of hardware and software modules in the processing circuit, etc.

[0287] In this application embodiment, the memory may include, but is not limited to, non-volatile memory such as hard disk drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD), random access memory (RAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), read-only memory (ROM), or compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), etc. Memory is any storage medium capable of carrying or storing program code in the form of instructions or data structures, and capable of being read and / or written by a computer (such as the device shown in this application), but is not limited to this. The memory in this application embodiment may also be a circuit or any other device capable of implementing storage functions, used to store program instructions and / or data.

[0288] For example, the processing circuit 720 is mainly used to process communication protocols and communication data, control the entire device, execute software programs, and process the data of the software programs. The memory 730 is mainly used to store software programs and data. The transceiver circuit 710 may include a control circuit and an antenna. The control circuit is mainly used for converting baseband signals to radio frequency signals and processing radio frequency signals. The antenna is mainly used for transmitting and receiving radio frequency signals in the form of electromagnetic waves. Input / output devices, such as touch screens, displays, and keyboards, are mainly used to receive user input data and output data to the user.

[0289] When the device is powered on, the processing circuit 720 can read the software program in the memory 730, interpret and execute the instructions of the software program, and process the data of the software program. When data needs to be transmitted wirelessly, the processing circuit 720 performs baseband processing on the data to be transmitted and outputs the baseband signal to the radio frequency (RF) circuit. The RF circuit then performs RF processing on the baseband signal and transmits the RF signal outward in the form of electromagnetic waves through the antenna. When data is sent to the device, the RF circuit receives the RF signal through the antenna, converts the RF signal into a baseband signal, and outputs the baseband signal to the processing circuit 720. The processing circuit 720 converts the baseband signal into data and processes the data.

[0290] In another implementation, the radio frequency circuit and antenna can be set up independently of the processing circuit that performs baseband processing. For example, in a distributed scenario, the radio frequency circuit and antenna can be arranged remotely, independent of the device.

[0291] The device shown in this application embodiment may have more components than those in Figure 7, and this application embodiment does not limit this. The methods performed by the processing circuit and transceiver circuit shown above are only examples, and the specific steps performed by the processing circuit and transceiver circuit can be referred to the methods described above.

[0292] In another possible implementation, in the device shown in Figure 6, the processing module 601 can be one or more logic circuits, and the transceiver module 602 can be an input / output interface, or a communication interface, or an interface circuit, or an interface, etc. Alternatively, the transceiver module 602 can also be a sending module and a receiving module, where the sending module can be an output interface and the receiving module can be an input interface, and the sending module and receiving module are integrated into one module, such as an input / output interface.

[0293] Figure 8 is a schematic diagram of another communication device provided in an embodiment of this application. As shown in Figure 8, the communication device includes a logic circuit 801 and an interface circuit 802. That is, the processing module 601 can be implemented using the logic circuit 801, and the transceiver module 602 can be implemented using the interface circuit 802. The logic circuit 801 can be a chip, a processing circuit, an integrated circuit, or a system-on-chip (SoC) chip, etc., and the interface circuit 802 can be a communication interface, an input / output interface, pins, etc. For example, Figure 8 illustrates the communication device as a chip, which includes the logic circuit 801 and the interface circuit 802.

[0294] In this embodiment, the logic circuit and the interface can also be coupled to each other. The specific connection method of the logic circuit and the interface is not limited in this embodiment. For example, the logic circuit 801 can be used to execute the functions or steps implemented by the processing module 601 shown in FIG. 6, and the interface circuit 802 can be used to execute the functions or steps implemented by the transceiver module 602 shown in FIG. 6. For a detailed description of the logic circuit 801 and the interface circuit 802, please refer to FIG. 6 or the method embodiment shown above, which will not be detailed here.

[0295] The apparatus shown in the embodiments of this application can be implemented in hardware or software, and the embodiments of this application do not limit this.

[0296] This application also provides a communication system, which includes a network device and a terminal device, which can be used to perform the methods in any of the foregoing embodiments.

[0297] In addition, this application also provides a computer program for implementing the operations and / or processes performed by various devices in the method provided in this application.

[0298] This application also provides a computer-readable storage medium storing computer code that, when executed on a computer, causes the computer to perform the operations and / or processes performed by the various devices in the methods provided in this application.

[0299] This application also provides a computer program product comprising computer code or a computer program that, when run on a computer, causes the operations and / or processes performed by various entities in the method provided in this application to be executed.

[0300] In the embodiments provided in this application, it should be understood that the disclosed systems, apparatuses, and methods can be implemented in other ways. For example, the apparatus embodiments described above are merely illustrative; for instance, the division of modules is only a logical functional division, and in actual implementation, there may be other division methods. For example, multiple modules or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be ignored or not executed. Furthermore, the couplings or direct couplings or communication connections shown or discussed may be indirect couplings or communication connections through some interfaces, devices, or modules, or they may be electrical, mechanical, or other forms of connection.

[0301] The modules described as separate components may or may not be physically separate. The components shown as modules may or may not be physical modules; that is, they may be located in one place or distributed across multiple network modules. Some or all of the modules can be selected according to actual needs to achieve the technical effects of the solutions provided in the embodiments of this application.

[0302] Furthermore, the functional modules in the various embodiments of this application can be integrated into one processing module, or each module can exist physically separately, or two or more modules can be integrated into one module. The integrated modules described above can be implemented in hardware or as software functional modules.

[0303] If the integrated module is implemented as a software functional module and sold or used as an independent product, it can be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. Based on this understanding, the technical solution of this application, in essence, or the part that contributes to the prior art, or all or part of the technical solution, can be embodied in the form of a software product. This computer software product is stored in a readable storage medium and includes several instructions to cause a computer device (which may be a personal computer, server, or network device, etc.) to execute all or part of the steps of the methods described in the various embodiments of this application. The aforementioned readable storage medium includes various media capable of storing program code, such as USB flash drives, portable hard drives, read-only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), magnetic disks, or optical disks.

[0304] The above description is merely a specific embodiment of this application, but the scope of protection of this application is not limited thereto. Any variations or substitutions that can be easily conceived by those skilled in the art within the scope of the technology disclosed in this application should be included within the scope of protection of this application. Therefore, the scope of protection of this application should be determined by the scope of the claims.

Claims

1. An information transmission method, characterized in that, The method includes: Determine the first resource occupied by the first part of the information; Based on the second information, the first resource, and the third resource occupied by the first information, the second resource occupied by the second part of the information is determined; the second information is information related to the encoding of the second part of the information, and the first information includes the first part of the information and the second part of the information; The first information is sent based on the first resource and the second resource; or, the first information is sent based on the fourth resource occupied by the first part of the information and the second resource; the fourth resource is determined based on the second resource and the third resource.

2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that, The first part of the information is generated based on independent coding of the source channel, and the second part of the information is generated based on joint coding of the source channel.

3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that, The second information includes information related to the first model.

4. The method according to any one of claims 1-3, characterized in that, The determination of the second resource occupied by the second part of the information based on the second information, the first resource, and the third resource occupied by the first information includes: Based on the first resource and the third resource occupied by the first information, determine the fifth resource; Based on the second information and the fifth resource, the second resource occupied by the second part of the information is determined.

5. The method according to claim 4, characterized in that, Sending the first information based on the first resource and the second resource includes: If the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource is equal to the number of resources corresponding to the second resource, the first information is sent based on the first resource and the second resource.

6. The method according to claim 4, characterized in that, The step of sending the first information based on the fourth resource and the second resource occupied by the first part of the information includes: If the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource is greater than the number of resources corresponding to the second resource, the first information is sent based on the fourth resource and the second resource occupied by the first part of the information.

7. The method according to any one of claims 4-6, characterized in that, The method further includes: Obtain a first threshold, wherein the number of resources corresponding to the fifth resource is greater than or equal to the first threshold.

8. The method according to any one of claims 1-7, characterized in that, The first code block corresponding to the first part of the information includes third information and cyclic redundancy check (CRC); or, the first code block corresponding to the first part of the information includes third information, CRC, and first indication information. The first indication information is used to indicate the resources occupied by the second part of the information, and the third information includes one or more of the following: Channel State Information Reference Signal Resource Indicator (CRI), Channel Quality Indicator (CQI), Rank Indicator (RI), or Layer Indicator (LI).

9. The method according to any one of claims 1-8, characterized in that, The first information is obtained by concatenating codewords based on the first part of information and the second part of information.

10. The method according to any one of claims 1-9, characterized in that, The method further includes: Send a fourth message, which is information related to the joint coding of the source and channel.

11. The method according to any one of claims 1-10, characterized in that, The second part of the information includes precoding matrix information.

12. An information transmission method, characterized in that, The method includes: Receive first configuration information, which is used to configure the initial resources occupied by the second part of the information; Based on the initial resources and the third resources occupied by the first information, the sixth resources occupied by the first part of the information are determined; the first information includes the first part of the information and the second part of the information. The first information is sent based on the initial resource and the sixth resource; or, the first information is sent based on the seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information and the eighth resource occupied by the first part of the information; the seventh resource is less than the initial resource, and the eighth resource is determined based on the seventh resource and the third resource.

13. The method according to claim 12, characterized in that, The first part of the information is generated based on independent coding of the source channel, and the second part of the information is generated based on joint coding of the source channel.

14. The method according to claim 12 or 13, characterized in that, The second part of the information is related to the first model.

15. The method according to any one of claims 12-14, characterized in that, The method further includes: Receive second configuration information, which is used to configure the maximum bitrate corresponding to the first part of the information; or... The first configuration information is also used to configure the maximum bitrate corresponding to the first part of the information.

16. The method according to claim 15, characterized in that, The method further includes: Based on the sixth resource, the first code block corresponding to the first part of information, and the modulation scheme of the first part of information, the first code rate corresponding to the first part of information is determined. Wherein, the first code block includes third information and cyclic redundancy check (CRC); or, the first code block includes third information, CRC, and first indication information; The first indication information is used to indicate the resources occupied by the second part of the information, and the third information includes one or more of the following: Channel State Information Reference Signal Resource Indicator (CRI), Channel Quality Indicator (CQI), Rank Indicator (RI), or Layer Indicator (LI).

17. The method according to claim 16, characterized in that, Sending the first information based on the initial resource and the sixth resource includes: If the first bitrate is less than or equal to the maximum bitrate, the first information is sent based on the initial resource and the sixth resource.

18. The method according to claim 16, characterized in that, Sending the first information based on the seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information and the eighth resource occupied by the first part of the information includes: If the first bit rate is greater than the maximum bit rate, the first information is sent based on the seventh resource occupied by the second part of the information and the eighth resource occupied by the first part of the information.

19. A communication device, characterized in that, It includes a processing circuit and a transceiver circuit, the transceiver circuit being used to input and / or output information, and the processing circuit being used to perform the method as described in any one of claims 1-11, or the processing circuit being used to perform the method as described in any one of claims 12-18.

20. A computer-readable storage medium, characterized in that, The computer-readable storage medium is used to store a computer program, which, when executed, performs the method as described in any one of claims 1-11, or the method as described in any one of claims 12-18.

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