Ra-RNTI determination for additional prach resources
Patent Information
- Application Number
- PCT/US2026/021216
- Authority / Receiving Office
- WO · WO
- Patent Type
- Applications
- Current Assignee / Owner
- Priority Date
- 2025-03-28
- Filing Date
- 2026-03-27
- Publication Date
- 2026-10-01
Smart Images
Figure US2026021216_01102026_PF_FP_ABST
Abstract
Description
AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1RA-RNTI DETERMINATION FOR ADDITIONAL PRACH RESOURCESPRIORITY CLAIM
[0001] This application claims the benefit of priority to United States Provisional Application No. 63 / 779,931, filed March 28, 2025, and entitled “DETERMINATION OF RANDOM ACCESS RADIO NETWORK TEMPORARY IDENTIFIER (RA-RNTI) FOR ADDITIONAL PHYSICAL RANDOM ACCESS CHANNEL (PRACH) RESOURCES TO ENHANCE NETWORK ENERGY SAVING,” which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.BACKGROUND
[0002] Mobile communications have evolved significantly from early voice systems to today’s highly sophisticated integrated communication platform. With the growing number of devices communicating with various network devices, the use of 3 GPP LTE systems has increased. The penetration of mobile devices (user equipments or UEs) in modern society has continued to drive demand for a wide variety of networked devices in many disparate environments. Fifth-generation (5G) (and beyond) wireless systems are expected to enable even greater speed, connectivity, and usability. Nextgeneration 5G networks (or NR networks) and beyond (e.g., 6G networks) are expected to increase throughput, coverage, and robustness, while reducing latency and operational and capital expenditures. 5G NR (and beyond) networks will continue to evolve based on 3 GPP LTE- Advanced, with additional potential new radio access technologies (RATs) to enrich people’s lives with seamless wireless connectivity, delivering fast, rich content and services.
[0003] Further enhancements to the operation of LTE and NR systems in both licensed and unlicensed spectrum are expected in future releases of 5G and beyond communication systems. Such enhanced operations can includeAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1techniques for determining a random access radio network temporary identifier (RA-RNTI) for additional physical random access channel (PRACH) resources.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES
[0004] In the figures, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, like numerals may describe similar components in different views. Like numerals having different letter suffixes may represent different instances of similar components. The figures illustrate, generally, by way of example, but not by way of limitation, various aspects discussed in the present document.
[0005] FIG. 1 A illustrates the architecture of a network, in accordance with some aspects.
[0006] FIG. IB and FIG. 1C illustrate a non-roaming 5G system architecture, in accordance with some aspects.
[0007] FIG. 2, FIG. 3, FIG. 4, and FIG. 5 illustrate various systems, architectures, devices, and components that may implement aspects of disclosed embodiments.
[0008] FIG. 6 illustrates an example artificial intelligence (Al)-assisted communication architecture for communication between a UE and a RAN, in accordance with some aspects.
[0009] FIG. 7 illustrates an example RAN split architecture, in accordance with some aspects.
[0010] FIG. 8 is a flowchart of a 4-step RACH procedure, in accordance with some aspects.
[0011] FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating RA-RNTI determination for additional PRACH resources, in accordance with some aspects.
[0012] FIG. 10 illustrates a block diagram of a communication device such as an evolved Node-B (eNB), a new generation Node-B (gNB) (or another RAN node), an NCR, an access point (AP), a wireless station (STA), a mobile station (MS), or user equipment (UE), in accordance with some aspects.DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0013] The following detailed description provides illustrative examples and embodiments of the present technological development, which pertains to the determination of Random Access Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RA-RNTI) for additional Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) resourcesAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1within the context of 5G and beyond wireless communication systems. This technological development is directed toward resolving ambiguity in RA-RNTI computation when additional PRACH resources and existing PRACH resources are multiplexed in a frequency division multiplexing (FDM) manner, and toward related techniques for PDCCH-ordered PRACH transmission and PRACH occasion ordering for PRACH adaptation in next-generation networks, including 5GNew Radio (NR) and future 6G systems. These techniques address challenges related to random access procedure configurations when a base station configures extra PRACH resources to handle higher PRACH demand, such as scenarios following paging of a large number of UEs, thereby facilitating network energy saving.
[0014] The examples and embodiments described herein are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to limit the scope of the described subject matter. Certain well-known elements, protocols, and processes may be omitted or simplified for clarity, as they are readily understood by those skilled in the art. Furthermore, various modifications, rearrangements, or substitutions of components and steps may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the described subject matter, as defined by the appended claims. The described subject matter encompasses all such variations and equivalents that fall within the intended scope.
[0015] As used herein, the term “base station” refers to a network node configured to communicate with user equipment, schedule transmissions, and transmit or receive radio signals within a cellular network.
[0016] As used herein, the term “downlink control information (DCI)” refers to a control message transmitted from a base station to user equipment, carrying scheduling assignments, resource allocations, and power control commands.
[0017] As used herein, the term “New Radio (NR) network” refers to a fifthgeneration (5G) (or beyond) wireless communication network architecture defined by 3 GPP standards.
[0018] As used herein, the term “physical downlink control channel (PDCCH)” refers to a physical channel used to transmit downlink control information from a base station to user equipment.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0019] As used herein, the term “physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH)” refers to a physical channel used to carry downlink user data, higher-layer signaling, and a second stage of a two-stage downlink control information.
[0020] As used herein, the term “physical uplink control channel (PUCCH)” refers to a physical channel used by user equipment to transmit uplink control information, including HARQ-ACK feedback, scheduling requests, and channel state information.
[0021] As used herein, the term “physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH)” refers to a physical channel used by user equipment to transmit uplink user data and uplink control information, including HARQ-ACK feedback.
[0022] As used herein, the term “processing circuitry” refers to hardware components, such as microprocessors, digital signal processors, or field-programmable gate arrays, configured to execute instructions or perform specific logical and arithmetic operations.
[0023] As used herein, the term “radio resource control (RRC) signaling” refers to higher-layer control plane signaling used to configure connection parameters, resource allocations, and operational behaviors between user equipment and a base station.
[0024] As used herein, the term “user equipment (UE)” refers to a mobile or non-mobile computing device equipped with radio communication capabilities, configured to connect to a wireless access network.
[0025] As used herein, the term “additional PRACH resource” may refer to a specific allocation of physical random access channel resources configured to supplement an existing physical random access channel resource allocation.
[0026] As used herein, the term “Cell Radio Network Temporary Identifier (C-RNTI)” may refer to a unique identification allocated to user equipment by a base station to identify the user equipment during an active connection.
[0027] As used herein, the term “Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC)” may refer to an error-detecting code appended to a data payload to detect accidental changes to raw data.
[0028] As used herein, the term “DCI format 1 0” may refer to a specific format of downlink control information used for the scheduling of a physicalAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1downlink shared channel or for indicating a physical downlink control channel-ordered physical random access channel transmission.
[0029] As used herein, the term “existing PRACH resource” may refer to a baseline allocation of physical random access channel resources configured for user equipment to initiate a random access procedure.
[0030] As used herein, the term “frequency division multiplexed” may refer to a technique by which a total available bandwidth is divided into a series of non-overlapping frequency bands.
[0031] As used herein, the term “frequency domain index” may refer to a numerical value identifying the position of a specific resource within a frequency domain.
[0032] As used herein, the term “Message B Radio Network Temporary Identifier (MSGB-RNTI)” may refer to an identifier used for scrambling a cyclic redundancy check of a physical downlink control channel corresponding to a Message B transmission in a two-step random access procedure.
[0033] As used herein, the term “msgl-FDM” may refer to a parameter indicating the number of physical random access channel transmission occasions frequency division multiplexed in one time instance.
[0034] As used herein, the term “OFDM symbol” may refer to a discrete unit of data transmission in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing scheme.
[0035] As used herein, the term “PDCCH ordered PRACH transmission” may refer to a random access procedure initiated by a user equipment in response to a specific command received from a base station via a physical downlink control channel.
[0036] As used herein, the term “Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) preamble” may refer to a specific signal sequence transmitted by a user equipment to initiate a connection with a base station.
[0037] As used herein, the term “PRACH occasion” may refer to a specific time and frequency resource allocated for the transmission of a physical random access channel preamble.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0038] As used herein, the term “PRACH occasion ordering” may refer to a defined sequence or set of rules for mapping synchronization signals to valid physical random access channel occasions.
[0039] As used herein, the term “PRACH preamble repetitions” may refer to the transmission of a physical random access channel preamble across multiple occasions to improve reception reliability.
[0040] As used herein, the term “PRACH resource configuration identifier” may refer to a numerical value distinguishing between different physical random access channel resource configurations.
[0041] As used herein, the term “random access preamble index” may refer to a numerical value identifying a specific preamble sequence to be used by a user equipment during a random access procedure.
[0042] As used herein, the term “Random Access Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RA-RNTI)” may refer to an identifier used to scramble a cyclic redundancy check of a physical downlink control channel that schedules a random access response.
[0043] As used herein, the term “random access response (RAR)” may refer to a message transmitted by a base station in response to receiving a physical random access channel preamble from a user equipment.
[0044] As used herein, the term “slot” may refer to a defined time interval within a system frame comprising a specific number of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing symbols.
[0045] As used herein, the term “starting frequency offset” may refer to a parameter defining an initial frequency position of a resource allocation within a frequency band.
[0046] As used herein, the term “synchronization signal / physical broadcast channel (SS / PBCH) block” may refer to a signal block comprising primary and secondary synchronization signals and a physical broadcast channel used for cell search and synchronization.
[0047] As used herein, the term “system frame” may refer to a defined time interval in a wireless communication system comprising a specific number of slots.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0048] As used herein, the term “time instance” may refer to a specific point or interval in a time domain.
[0049] As used herein, the term “timeline requirement” may refer to a specified processing delay or timing constraint between the reception of a downlink command and the execution of a corresponding uplink transmission.
[0050] As used herein, the term “two-step random access channel (RACH) procedure” may refer to a connection initiation process wherein a user equipment transmits a preamble and payload together in a first message and receives a combined response and contention resolution in a second message.
[0051] As used herein, the term “Type-1 PRACH configuration” may refer to a specific parameter set defining time and frequency allocations for physical random access channel transmissions.
[0052] As used herein, the term “Type-2 PRACH configuration” may refer to a second specific parameter set defining time and frequency allocations for physical random access channel transmissions.
[0053] As used herein, the term “uplink carrier” may refer to a designated frequency band used for transmissions from a user equipment to a base station.
[0054] FIG. 1 A - FIG. 10 illustrate various systems, devices, and components that may implement aspects of disclosed embodiments in different communication systems, such as LTE (EUTRA) and 5G-NR (and beyond) networks. UEs, base stations (such as gNBs), and / or other nodes (e.g., satellites or other computing nodes) discussed herein can be configured to perform the disclosed techniques.
[0055] FIG. 1 A illustrates the architecture of a network in accordance with some aspects. The communication network 140A is illustrated as including user equipment (UE) 101 and UE 102. The UE 101 and UE 102 are illustrated as smartphones (e.g., handheld touchscreen mobile computing devices connectable to one or more cellular networks) but may also include any mobile or non-mobile computing device, such as Personal Data Assistants (PDAs), pagers, laptop computers, desktop computers, wireless handsets, drones, or any other computing device including a wired and / or wireless communications interface. UE 101 and UE 102 can be collectively referred to herein as UEs 101, and UE 101 can be used to perform one or more of the techniques disclosed herein.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0056] Any of the radio links described herein (e.g., as used in the communication network 140 A or any other illustrated network) may operate according to any exemplary radio communication technology and / or standard.
[0057] LTE and LTE-Advanced are standards for high-speed wireless data communications for UEs, such as mobile telephones. In LTE-Advanced and various wireless systems, carrier aggregation is a technology that allows multiple carrier signals operating on different frequencies to be used to carry communications for a single UE, thereby increasing the bandwidth available to a single device. In some aspects, carrier aggregation may be used where one or more component carriers operate on unlicensed frequencies.
[0058] Aspects described herein can be used in the context of any spectrum management scheme, including, for example, dedicated licensed spectrum, unlicensed spectrum, (licensed) shared spectrum (such as Licensed Shared Access (LSA) in 2.3-2.4 GHz, 3.4-3.6 GHz, 3.6-3.8 GHz, and further frequencies and Spectrum Access System (SAS) in 3.55-3.7 GHz and further frequencies).
[0059] Aspects described herein can also be applied to different Single Carrier or OFDM flavors (CP-OFDM, DFT-S-OFDM, SC-FDMA, SC-OFDM, filter bank-based multicarrier (FBMC), OFDMA, etc.) and, in particular, 3GPP NR (New Radio) by allocating the OFDM carrier data bit vectors to the corresponding symbol resources.
[0060] In some aspects, any of the UE 101 and UE 102 can include an Internet-of-Things (loT) UE or a Cellular loT (CIoT) UE, which can include a network access layer designed for low-power loT applications utilizing shortlived UE connections. In some aspects, any of the UE 101 and UE 102 can include a narrowband (NB) loT UE (e.g., an enhanced NB-IoT (eNB-IoT) UE and a Further Enhanced (FeNB-IoT) UE). An loT UE can utilize technologies such as machine-to-machine (M2M) or machine-type communications (MTC) for exchanging data with an MTC server or device via a public land mobile network (PLMN), Proximity-Based Service (ProSe), or device-to-device (D2D) communication, sensor networks, or loT networks. The M2M or MTC exchange of data may be a machine-initiated exchange of data. An loT network includes interconnecting loT UEs, which may include uniquely identifiable embeddedAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1computing devices (within the Internet infrastructure) with short-lived connections. The loT UEs may execute background applications (e.g., keepalive messages, status updates, etc.) to facilitate the connections of the loT network.
[0061] In some aspects, any of the UE 101 and UE 102 can include enhanced MTC (eMTC) UEs or further enhanced MTC (FeMTC) UEs.
[0062] The UE 101 and UE 102 may be configured to connect, e.g., communicatively coupled, with a radio access network (RAN) 110. The RAN 110 may be, for example, a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), an Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), a NextGen RAN (NG RAN), or some other type of RAN. The UE 101 and UE 102 utilize connections 103 and 104, respectively, each of which includes a physical communications interface or layer (discussed in further detail below); in this example, the connections 103 and 104 are illustrated as an air interface to enable communicative coupling and can be consistent with cellular communications protocols, such as a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) protocol, a code-division multiple access (CDMA) network protocol, a Push-to-Talk (PTT) protocol, a PTT over Cellular (POC) protocol, a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) protocol, a 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) protocol, a fifth-generation (5G) protocol, a New Radio (NR) protocol, and the like.
[0063] In an aspect, the UE 101 and UE 102 may further directly exchange communication data via a ProSe interface 105. The ProSe interface 105 may alternatively be referred to as a sidelink interface comprising one or more logical channels, including but not limited to a Physical Sidelink Control Channel (PSCCH), a Physical Sidelink Shared Channel (PSSCH), a Physical Sidelink Discovery Channel (PSDCH), and a Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel (PSBCH).
[0064] The UE 102 is shown to be configured to access an access point (AP) 106 via connection 107. The connection 107 can include a local wireless connection, such as, for example, a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, according to which the AP 106 can include a wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) router. In this example, the AP 106 is shown to be connected to the InternetAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1without connecting to the core network of the wireless system (described in further detail below).
[0065] The RAN 110 can include one or more access nodes that enable connections 103 and 104. These access nodes (ANs) can be referred to as base stations (BSs), NodeBs, evolved NodeBs (eNBs), Next Generation NodeBs (gNBs), RAN network nodes, and the like, and can include ground stations (e.g., terrestrial access points) or satellite stations providing coverage within a geographic area (e.g., a cell). In some aspects, communication nodes 111 and 112 can be transmission / reception points (TRPs). In instances when the communication nodes 111 and 112 are NodeBs (e.g., eNBs or gNBs), one or more TRPs can function within the communication cell of the NodeBs. The RAN 110 may include one or more RAN nodes for providing macrocells, e.g., macro RAN nodes, and one or more RAN nodes for providing femtocells or picocells (e.g., cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells), e.g., a low-power (LP) RAN node or an unlicensed spectrum-based secondary RAN node.
[0066] Any of the communication nodes 111 and 112 can terminate the air interface protocol and can be the first point of contact for UE 101 and UE 102. In some aspects, any of the communication nodes 111 and 112 can fulfill various logical functions for the RAN 110, including, but not limited to, the radio network controller (RNC) functions such as radio bearer management, uplink, and downlink dynamic radio resource management, data packet scheduling, and mobility management. In an example, any of the communication nodes 111 and / or 112 can be a new generation Node-B (gNB), an evolved node-B (eNB), or another type of RAN node.
[0067] The RAN 110 is shown to be communicatively coupled to a core network (CN) 120 via an SI interface 113. In aspects, the CN 120 may be an evolved packet core (EPC) network, a NextGen Packet Core (NPC) network, or some other type of CN (e.g., as illustrated in FIGS. 1B-1C). In this aspect, the SI interface 113 is split into two parts: the Sl-U interface 114, which carries user traffic data between the communication nodes 111 and 112 and the serving gateway (S-GW) 122, and the SI -mobility management entity (MME) interfaceAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1115, which is a signaling interface between the communication nodes 111 and 112 and MMEs 121.
[0068] In this aspect, the CN 120 comprises the MMEs 121, the S-GW 122, the Packet Data Network (PDN) Gateway (P-GW) 123, and a home subscriber server (HSS) 124. The MMEs 121 may be similar in function to the control plane of legacy Serving General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Support Nodes (SGSN). The MMEs 121 may manage mobility aspects in access, such as gateway selection and tracking area list management. The HSS 124 may comprise a database for network users, including subscription-related information to support the network entities' handling of communication sessions. The CN 120 may comprise one or several HSSs 124, depending on the number of mobile subscribers, the capacity of the equipment, the organization of the network, etc. For example, the HSS 124 can provide support for routing / roaming, authentication, authorization, naming / addressing resolution, location dependencies, etc.
[0069] The S-GW 122 may terminate the SI interface 113 towards the RAN 110 and route data packets between the RAN 110 and the CN 120. In addition, the S-GW 122 may be a local mobility anchor point for inter-RAN node handovers and may also provide an anchor for inter-3GPP mobility. Other responsibilities of the S-GW 122 may include lawful intercept, charging, and some policy enforcement.
[0070] The P-GW 123 may terminate an SGi interface toward a PDN. The P-GW 123 may route data packets between the EPC network (e.g., CN 120) and external networks, such as a network including the application server 184 (alternatively referred to as application function (AF)) via an Internet Protocol (IP) interface 125. The P-GW 123 can also communicate data to external networks 131 A, including the Internet, the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) network, and other networks. Generally, the application server 184 may be an element offering applications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g., UMTS Packet Services (PS) domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). In this aspect, the P-GW 123 is shown to be communicatively coupled to an application server 184 via an IP interface 125. The application server 184 can also be configured to support one or more communication services (e.g., Voice-over-AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1Internet Protocol (VoIP) sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social networking services, etc.) for the UE 101 and UE 102 via the CN 120.
[0071] The P-GW 123 may further be a node for policy enforcement and charging data collection. Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) 126 is the policy and charging control element of the CN 120. In a non-roaming scenario, in some aspects, there may be a single PCRF in the Home Public Land Mobile Network (HPLMN) associated with a UE's Internet Protocol Connectivity Access Network (IP-CAN) session. In a roaming scenario with a local breakout of traffic, there may be two PCRFs associated with a UE's IP-CAN session: a Home PCRF (H-PCRF) within an HPLMN and a Visited PCRF (V-PCRF) within a Visited Public Land Mobile Network (VPLMN). The PCRF 126 may be communicatively coupled to the application server 184 via the P-GW 123.
[0072] In some aspects, the communication network 140 A can be an loT network or a 5G network, including a 5G new radio network using communications in the licensed (5G NR) and the unlicensed (5G NR-U) spectrum. One of the current enablers of loT is the narrowband loT (NB-IoT).
[0073] An NG system architecture can include the RAN 110 and a 5G core network (e.g., CN 120). RAN 110 in an NG system can be referred to as NG-RAN. The RAN 110 can include a plurality of nodes, such as gNBs and NG-eNBs. The CN 120 (also referred to as a 5G core network or 5GC) can include an access and mobility function (AMF) and / or a user plane function (UPF). The AMF and the UPF can be communicatively coupled to the gNBs and the NG-eNBs via NG interfaces. More specifically, in some aspects, the gNBs and the NG-eNBs can be connected to the AMF by NG-C interfaces and the UPF by NG-U interfaces. The gNBs and the NG-eNBs can be coupled to each other via Xn interfaces.
[0074] In some aspects, the NG system architecture can use reference points between various nodes as provided by 3GPP Technical Specification (TS) 23.501 (e.g., V15.4.0, 2018-12). In some aspects, each of the gNBs and the NG-eNBs can be implemented as a base station, a mobile edge server, a small cell, a home eNB, a RAN network node, and so forth. In some aspects, a gNB can be a master node (MN), and an NG-eNB can be a secondary node (SN) in a 5GAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1architecture. In some aspects, the master / primary node may operate in a licensed band, and the secondary node may operate in an unlicensed band.
[0075] FIG. IB illustrates a non-roaming 5G system architecture in accordance with some aspects. Referring to FIG. IB, there is illustrated a 5G system architecture 140B in a reference point representation. More specifically, UE 102 can be in communication with RAN 110 as well as one or more other 5G core (5GC) network entities. The 5G system architecture 140B includes a plurality of network functions (NFs), such as access and mobility management function (AMF) 132, location management function (LMF) 133, session management function (SMF) 136, policy control function (PCF) 148, application function (AF) 150, user plane function (UPF) 134, network slice selection function (NSSF) 142, authentication server function (AUSF) 144, and unified data management (UDM) / home subscriber server (HSS) 146. The UPF 134 can provide a connection to a data network (DN) 152, which can include, for example, operator services, Internet access, or third-party services. The AMF 132 can be used to manage access control and mobility, and can also include network slice selection functionality. The SMF 136 can be configured to set up and manage various sessions in accordance with network policy. The UPF 134 can be deployed in one or more configurations according to the desired service type. The PCF 148 can be configured to provide a policy framework using network slicing, mobility management, and roaming (similar to PCRF in a 4G communication system). The UDM can be configured to store subscriber profiles and data (similar to an HSS in a 4G communication system).
[0076] The LMF 133 may be used in connection with 5G positioning functionalities. In some aspects, LMF 133 receives measurements and assistance information from the RAN 110 and the mobile device (e.g., UE 101) via the AMF 132 over the N 1 interface to compute the position of the UE 101. In some aspects, NR positioning protocol A (NRPPa) may be used to carry the positioning information between NG-RAN and LMF 133 over a next-generation control plane interface (NG-C). In some aspects, LMF 133 configures the UE using the LTE positioning protocol (LPP) via AMF 132. The RAN 110 configures the UE 101 using radio resource control (RRC) protocol over LTE-Uu and NR-Uu interfaces.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0077] In some aspects, the 5G system architecture MOB configures different reference signals to enable positioning measurements. Example reference signals that may be used for positioning measurements include the positioning reference signal (NR PRS) in the downlink and the sounding reference signal (SRS) for positioning in the uplink. The downlink positioning reference signal (PRS) is a reference signal configured to support downlink-based positioning methods.
[0078] In some aspects, the 5G system architecture 140B includes an IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) 168B as well as a plurality of IP multimedia core network subsystem entities, such as call session control functions (CSCFs). More specifically, the IMS 168B includes a CSCF, which can act as a proxy CSCF (P-CSCF) 162B, a serving CSCF (S-CSCF) 164B, an emergency CSCF (E-CSCF) (not illustrated in FIG. IB), or an interrogating CSCF (I-CSCF) 166B. The P-CSCF 162B can be configured to be the first contact point for the UE 102 within the IMS 168B. The S-CSCF 164B can be configured to handle the session states in the network, and the E-CSCF can be configured to handle certain aspects of emergency sessions, such as routing an emergency request to the correct emergency center or PSAP. The I-CSCF 166B can be configured to function as the contact point within an operator's network for all IMS connections destined to a subscriber of that network operator or a roaming subscriber currently located within that network operator's service area. In some aspects, the I-CSCF 166B can be connected to another IP multimedia network 170, e.g., an IMS operated by a different network operator.
[0079] In some aspects, the UDM / HSS 146 can be coupled to an application server (AS) 160B, which can include a telephony application server (TAS) or another AS. The AS 160B can be coupled to the IMS 168B via the S-CSCF 164B or the I-CSCF 166B.
[0080] A reference point representation shows that interaction can exist between corresponding NF services. For example, FIG. IB illustrates the following reference points: N1 (between the UE 102 and the AMF 132), N2 (between the RAN 110 and the AMF 132), N3 (between the RAN 110 and the UPF 134), N4 (between the SMF 136 and the UPF 134), N5 (between the PCF 148 and the AF 150, not shown), N6 (between the UPF 134 and the DN 152),AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1N7 (between the SMF 136 and the PCF 148, not shown), N8 (between the UDM / HSS 146 and the AMF 132, not shown), N9 (between two UPFs, not shown), N10 (between the UDM / HSS 146 and the SMF 136, not shown), N11 (between the AMF 132 and the SMF 136, not shown), N12 (between the AUSF 144 and the AMF 132, not shown), N13 (between the AUSF 144 and the UDM / HSS 146, not shown), N14 (between two AMFs, not shown), N15 (between the PCF 148 and the AMF 132 in case of a non-roaming scenario, or between the PCF 148 and a visited network and AMF 132 in case of a roaming scenario, not shown), N16 (between two SMFs, not shown), and N22 (between the AMF 132 and the NSSF 142, not shown). Other reference point representations not shown in FIG. IB can also be used.
[0081] FIG. 1C illustrates a 5G system architecture 140C and a service-based representation. In addition to the network entities illustrated in FIG. IB, the 5G system architecture 140C can also include a network exposure function (NEF) 154 and a network repository function (NRF) 156. In some aspects, 5G system architectures can be service-based, and interaction between network functions can be represented by corresponding point-to-point reference points Ni or as service-based interfaces.
[0082] In some aspects, as illustrated in FIG. 1C, service-based representations can be used to represent network functions within the control plane that enable other authorized network functions to access their services. In this regard, the 5G system architecture 140C can include the following servicebased interfaces: Namf 158H (a service-based interface exhibited by the AMF 132), Nsmf 1581 (a service-based interface exhibited by the SMF 136), Nnef 158B (a service-based interface exhibited by the NEF 154), Npcf 158D (a service-based interface exhibited by the PCF 148), a Nudm 158E (a servicebased interface exhibited by the UDM / HSS 146), Naf 158F (a service-based interface exhibited by the AF 150), Nnrf 158C (a service-based interface exhibited by the NRF 156), Nnssf 158 A (a service-based interface exhibited by the NSSF 142), Nausf 158G (a service-based interface exhibited by the AUSF 144). Other service-based interfaces (e.g., Nudr, N5g-eir, and Nudsf) not shown in FIG. 1C can also be used.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0083] FIG. 2 depicts an example network architecture 200. The network architecture 200 may operate in a manner consistent with 3GPP technical specifications for LTE or 5G / NR systems and can implement the disclosed techniques (e.g., the disclosed techniques can be configured / implemented by one or more devices operating within the network architecture 200). However, the example embodiments are not limited in this regard, and the described examples may apply to other networks that benefit from the principles described herein, such as future 3 GPP systems or the like.
[0084] The network architecture 200 includes a UE 202, which is any mobile or non-mobile computing device designed to communicate with a RAN 204 via an over-the-air connection. The UE 202 is communicatively coupled with the RAN 204 by a Uu interface, which may be applicable to both LTE and NR systems. Examples of the UE 202 include, but are not limited to, a smartphone, tablet computer, wearable device (e.g., smart watch, fitness tracker, smart glasses, smart clothing / fabrics, head-mounted displays, smart shoes, and / or the like), desktop computer, workstation, laptop computer, in-vehicle infotainment system, in-car entertainment system, instrument cluster, head-up display (HUD) device, onboard diagnostic device, dashtop mobile equipment, mobile data terminal, electronic engine management system, electronic / engine control unit, electronic / engine control module, embedded system, sensor, microcontroller, control module, engine management system, networked appliance, machine-type communication device, machine-to-machine (M2M), device-to-device (D2D), machine-type communication (MTC) device, Internet of Things (loT) device, smart appliance, flying drone or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), terrestrial drone or autonomous vehicle, robot, electronic signage, single-board computer (SBC) (e.g., Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Intel Edison, and the like), plug computers, and / or any type of computing device such as any of those discussed herein.
[0085] Additionally or alternatively, the UE 202 can be a reduced capability (RedCap) UE, which is a UE with reduced capabilities as specified in clause 4.2.21.1 in 3GPP TS 38.306 vl7.4.0 (2023-03-30) (“TS 38.306”).
[0086] The network architecture 200 may include a set of UEs 202 coupled directly with one another via a D2D, ProSe, PC5, and / or SL interface, and / or any other suitable interface such as any of those discussed herein. These UEs 202AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1may be M2M / D2D / MTC / IoT devices and / or vehicular systems that communicate using physical sidelink channels such as, but not limited to, PSBCH, PSDCH, PSSCH, PSCCH, PSFCH, and the like. The UE 202 may perform blind decoding attempts of SL channel s / links according to the various examples herein.
[0087] In some examples, the UE 202 may additionally communicate with an AP 206 via an over-the-air (OTA) connection. The AP 206 manages a WLAN connection, which may serve to offload some or all network traffic from the RAN 204. The connection between the UE 202 and the AP 206 may be consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol. Additionally, the UE 202, RAN 204, and AP 206 may utilize cellular- WLAN aggregation / integration (e.g., LWA / LWIP). Cellular- WLAN aggregation may involve the UE 202 being configured by the RAN 204 to utilize both cellular radio resources and WLAN resources.
[0088] The RAN 204 includes one or more access network nodes (ANs) 208. The ANs 208 terminate air interface(s) for the UE 202 by providing access to stratum protocols, including RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC, and PHY / L1 protocols. In this manner, the AN 208 enables data / voice connectivity between the CN 220 and the UE 202. The ANs 208 may be a macrocell base station or a low-power base station for providing femtocells, picocells, or other like cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells, or some combination thereof. In these implementations, an AN 208 can be referred to as a BS, gNB, RAN node, eNB, ng-eNB, NodeB, RSU, TRxP, and the like.
[0089] One example implementation is a “CU / DU split” architecture where the ANs 208 are embodied as a gNB-Central Unit (CU) that is communicatively coupled with one or more gNB -Distributed Units (DUs), where each DU may be communicatively coupled with one or more Radio Units (RUs) (also referred to as RRHs, RRUs, or the like) (see e.g., [TS38401]). In some implementations, the one or more RUs may be individual RSUs. In some implementations, the CU / DU split may include an ng-eNB-CU and one or more ng-eNB-DUs instead of, or in addition to, the gNB-CU and gNB-DUs, respectively. The ANs 208 employed as the CU may be implemented in a discrete device or as one or moreAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1software entities running on server computers as part of, for example, a virtual network including a virtual Base Band Unit (BBU) or BBU pool, cloud RAN (CRAN), Radio Equipment Controller (REC), Radio Cloud Center (RCC), centralized RAN (C-RAN), virtualized RAN (vRAN), and / or the like (although these terms may refer to different implementation concepts). Any other type of architecture, arrangement, and / or configurations can be used.
[0090] The set of ANs may be coupled with one another via an X2 interface (if the RAN 204 is an LTE RAN or Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) 210) or an Xn interface (if the RAN 204 is an NG-RAN 214). The X2 / Xn interfaces, which may be separated into control / user plane interfaces in some examples, may allow the ANs to communicate information related to handovers, data / context transfers, mobility, load management, interference coordination, and the like.
[0091] The ANs of the RAN 204 may each manage one or more cells, cell groups, component carriers, and the like to provide the UE 202 with an air interface for network access. The UE 202 may be simultaneously connected with a set of cells provided by the same or different ANs 208 of the RAN 204. For example, the UE 202 and RAN 204 may use carrier aggregation to allow the UE 202 to connect with a set of component carriers, each corresponding to a Pcell or Scell. In dual connectivity scenarios, a first AN 208 may be a master node that provides an MCG, and a second AN 208 may be a secondary node that provides an SCG. The first / second ANs 208 may be any combination of eNB, gNB, ng-eNB, and the like.
[0092] The RAN 204 may provide the air interface over a licensed spectrum or an unlicensed spectrum. To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, the nodes may use LAA, eLAA, and / or feLAA mechanisms based on CA technology with PCells / Scells. Prior to accessing the unlicensed spectrum, the nodes may perform medium / carrier-sensing operations based on, for example, a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol.
[0093] Additionally or alternatively, individual UEs 202 provide radio information to one or more ANs 208 and / or one or more edge compute nodes (e.g., edge servers / hosts and the like). The radio information may be in the form of one or more measurement reports and may include, for example, signalAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1strength measurements, signal quality measurements, and / or the like. Each measurement report is tagged with a timestamp and the location of the measurement (e.g., the UE’s 202 current location). As examples, the measurements collected by the UEs 202 and / or included in the measurement reports may include one or more of the following: bandwidth (BW), network or cell load, latency, jitter, round trip time (RTT), number of interrupts, out-of-order delivery of data packets, transmission power, bit error rate, bit error ratio (BER), Block Error Rate (BLER), packet error ratio (PER), packet loss rate, packet reception rate (PRR), data rate, peak data rate, end-to-end (e2e) delay, signal -to-noise ratio (SNR), signal-to-noise and interference ratio (SINR), signal-plus-noise-plus-distortion to noise-plus-distortion (SINAD) ratio, carrier-to-interference plus noise ratio (CINR), Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN), energy per bit to noise power density ratio (Eb / NO), energy per chip to interference power density ratio (Ec / 10), energy per chip to noise power density ratio (Ec / NO), peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), reference signal received power (RSRP), Reference Signal Received Path Power (RSRPP), reference signal received quality (RSRQ), received signal strength indicator (RS SI), received channel power indicator (RCPI), received signal to noise indicator (RSNI), Received Signal Code Power (RSCP), reference signal carrier phase (RSCP), reference signal carrier phase difference (RSCPD), carrier phase positioning (CPP), Reference Signal Time Difference (RSTD), Sidelink Synchronization Signal Block (S-SSB) measurements including SSB RP (Received (linear) average power of the resource elements that carry NR SSB signals and channels, measured at the UE antenna connector or radiated interface boundary) and / or the like, Relative Time Difference (RTD), receiver (Rx) time delay, Rx Timing Error, transmitter (Tx) time delay, Tx Timing Error, NR E-CID, Observed Time Difference Of Arrival (OTDOA), average noise plus interference (ANPI), GNSS timing of cell frames for UE positioning for E-UTRAN or 5G / NR (e.g., a timing between an AP or RAN node reference time and a GNSS-specific reference time for a given GNSS), GNSS code measurements (e.g., the GNSS code phase (integer and fractional parts) of the spreading code of the ith GNSS satellite signal), GNSS carrier phase measurements (e.g., the number of carrier-phase cycles (integer and fractional parts) of the ith GNSS satellite signal, measured since locking onto the signal;AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1also called Accumulated Delta Range (ADR)), channel interference measurements, thermal noise power measurements, received interference power measurements, power histogram measurements, channel load measurements, STA statistics, and / or other like measurements. The RSRP, RSSI, and / or RSRQ measurements may include RSRP, RSSI, and / or RSRQ measurements of cellspecific reference signals, channel state information reference signals (CSI-RS), and / or synchronization signals (SS) or SS blocks for 3GPP networks (e.g., LTE or 5G / NR), and RSRP, RSSI, RSRQ, RCPI, RSNI, and / or ANPI measurements of various beacon, Fast Initial Link Setup (FILS) discovery frames, or probe response frames for WLAN / WiFi (e.g., [IEEE80211]) networks. Other measurements may be additionally or alternatively used, such as those discussed in 3GPP TS 36.214 vl7.0.0 (2022-03-31) (“[TS36214]”), 3GPP TS 38.215 V17.3.0 (2023-03-30) (“[TS38215]”), 3GPP TS 38.314 vl7.2.0 (2023-01-13) (“[TS38314]”), IEEE Standard for Information Technology- Telecommunications and Information Exchange between Systems - Local and Metropolitan Area Networks— Specific Requirements - Part 11 : Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications, IEEE Std 802.11-2020, pp. 1-4379 (26 Feb. 2021) (“[IEEE80211]”), and / or the like. Additionally or alternatively, any of the measurements above (or a combination of measurements) may be collected by one or more ANs 208 and provided to the edge compute node(s).
[0094] Additionally or alternatively, the measurements can include one or more of the following measurements: measurements related to Data Radio Bearer (DRB) (e.g., number of DRBs attempted to be set up, number of DRBs successfully set up, number of released active DRBs, in-session activity time for DRB, number of DRBs attempted to be resumed, number of DRBs successfully resumed, and the like); measurements related to Radio Resource Control (RRC) (e.g., mean number of RRC connections, maximum number of RRC connections, mean number of stored inactive RRC connections, maximum number of stored inactive RRC connections, number of attempted, successful, and / or failed RRC connection establishments, and the like); measurements related to UE Context (UECNTX); measurements related to Radio Resource Utilization (RRU) (e.g., DL total PRB usage, UL total PRB usage, distribution of DL total PRB usage, distribution of UL total PRB usage, DL PRB used forAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1data traffic, UL PRB used for data traffic, DL total available PRBs, UL total available PRBs, and the like); measurements related to Registration Management (RM); measurements related to Session Management (SM) (e.g., number of PDU sessions requested to be set up; number of PDU sessions successfully set up; number of PDU sessions failed to be set up, and the like); measurements related to GTP Management (GTP); measurements related to IP Management (IP); measurements related to Policy Association (PA); measurements related to Mobility Management (MM) (e.g., for inter-RAT, intra-RAT, and / or Intra / Inter-frequency handovers and / or conditional handovers: number of requested, successful, and / or failed handover preparations; number of requested, successful, and / or failed handover resource allocations; number of requested, successful, and / or failed handover executions; mean and / or maximum time of requested handover executions; number of successful and / or failed handover executions per beam pair, and the like); measurements related to Virtualized Resource(s) (VR); measurements related to Carrier (CARR); measurements related to QoS Flows (QF) (e.g., number of released active QoS flows, number of QoS flows attempted to release, in-session activity time for QoS flow, in-session activity time for a UE 202, number of QoS flows attempted to set up, number of QoS flows successfully established, number of QoS flows failed to set up, number of initial QoS flows attempted to set up, number of initial QoS flows successfully established, number of initial QoS flows failed to set up, number of QoS flows attempted to modify, number of QoS flows successfully modified, number of QoS flows failed to modify, and the like); measurements related to Application Triggering (AT); measurements related to Short Message Service (SMS); measurements related to Power, Energy and Environment (PEE); measurements related to NF service (NFS); measurements related to Packet Flow Description (PFD); measurements related to Random Access Channel (RACH); measurements related to Measurement Report (MR); measurements related to Layer 1 Measurement (L1M); measurements related to Network Slice Selection (NSS); measurements related to Paging (PAG); measurements related to Non-IP Data Delivery (NIDD); measurements related to external parameter provisioning (EPP); measurements related to traffic influence (TI); measurements related to Connection Establishment (CE); measurements related to Service Parameter Provisioning (SPP); measurements related to Background Data Transfer PolicyAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1(BDTP); measurements related to Data Management (DM); and / or any other performance measurements such as those discussed in 3GPP TS 28.552 vl7.3.1 (2021-06-24) (“[TS28552]”), 3GPP TS 32.425 vl7.1.0 (2021-06-24) (“[TS32425]”), and / or the like.
[0095] The radio information may be reported in response to a trigger event and / or on a periodic basis. Additionally or alternatively, individual UEs 202 report radio information either at a low periodicity or a high periodicity depending on a data transfer that is to take place and / or other information about the data transfer. Additionally or alternatively, the edge compute node(s) may request the measurements from the ANs 208 at low or high periodicity, or the ANs 208 may provide the measurements to the edge compute node(s) at low or high periodicity. Additionally or alternatively, the edge compute node(s) may obtain other relevant data from other edge compute node(s), core network functions (NFs), application functions (AFs), and / or other UEs 202, such as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), with the measurement reports or separately from the measurement reports.
[0096] Additionally or alternatively, in cases where there is a discrepancy in the observation data from one or more UEs, one or more RAN nodes, and / or core network NFs (e.g., missing reports, erroneous data, and the like), simple imputations may be performed to supplement the obtained observation data, such as, for example, substituting values from previous reports and / or historical data, applying an extrapolation filter, and / or the like. Additionally or alternatively, acceptable bounds for the observation data may be predetermined or configured. For example, CQI and MCS measurements may be configured to only be within ranges defined by suitable 3GPP standards. In cases where a reported data value does not make sense (e.g., it exceeds an acceptable range or bounds), such values may be dropped for the current learning / training episode or epoch. For example, during packet delivery, delay bounds may be defined or configured, and packets determined to have been received after the delay bound may be dropped.
[0097] The UE 202 can also perform reference signal (RS) measurement and reporting procedures to provide the network with information about the quality of one or more wireless channels and / or the communication media in general,AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1and this information can be used to optimize various aspects of the communication system. As examples, the measurement and reporting procedures performed by the UE 202 can include those discussed in 3 GPP TS 38.211 V17.4.0 (2023-01-04) (“[TS38211]”), 3GPP TS 38.212 vl7.4.0 (2023-01-04) (“[TS38212]”), 3GPP TS 38.213 vl7.4.0 (2023-01-04) (“[TS38213]”), 3GPP TS 38.214 vl7.4.0 (2023-01-04) (“[TS38214]”), [TS38215], 3GPP TS 38.101-1 V18.0.0 (2023-01-12) (“[TS38.101-1]”), 3GPP TS 38.104 vl8.0.0 (2023-01-10) (“[TS38104]”), 3GPP TS 38.133 vl8.0.0 (2023-01-12) (“[TS38133]”), [TS38331], and / or the like. The physical signals and / or RScan include demodulation reference signals (DM-RS), phase-tracking reference signals (PT-RS), positioning reference signal (PRS), channel-state information reference signal (CSI-RS), synchronization signal block (SSB), primary synchronization signal (PSS), secondary synchronization signal (SSS), and sounding reference signal (SRS).
[0098] In any of the examples discussed herein, any suitable data collection and / or measurement mechanism(s) may be used to collect the observation data. For example, data marking (e.g., sequence numbering and the like), packet tracing, signal measurement, data sampling, and / or timestamping techniques may be used to determine any of the aforementioned metrics / observations. The collection of data may be based on the occurrence of events that trigger the collection of the data. Additionally or alternatively, data collection may take place at the initiation or termination of an event. The data collection can be continuous, discontinuous, and / or have start and stop times. The data collection techniques / mechanisms may be specific to an HW configuration / implementation or non-HW-specific or may be based on various software parameters (e.g., OS type and version, and the like). Various configurations may be used to define any of the aforementioned data collection parameters. Such configurations may be defined by suitable specifications / standards, such as 3GPP (e.g., [SA6Edge]), ETSI (e.g., [MEC]), 0-RAN (e.g., [0-RAN]), Intel® Smart Edge Open (formerly OpenNESS) (e.g., [ISEO]), IETF (e.g., MAMS [RFC8743]), lEEE / WiFi (e.g., [IEEE80211], [WiMAX], [IEEE1609.0], and the like), and / or any other like standards such as those discussed herein.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0099] In V2X scenarios, the UE 202 or AN 208 may be or act as a roadside unit (RSU), which may refer to any transportation infrastructure entity used for V2X communications. An RSU may be implemented in or by a suitable AN or a stationary (or relatively stationary) UE. An RSU implemented in or by a UE may be referred to as a “UE-type RSU”; an eNB may be referred to as an “eNB-type RSU”; a gNB may be referred to as a “gNB-type RSU’; and the like. In one example, an RSU is a computing device coupled with radio frequency circuitry located on a roadside that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs. The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry to store intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, and media, as well as applications / software to sense and control ongoing vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The RSU may provide very low-latency communications required for high-speed events, such as crash avoidance, traffic warnings, and the like.Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may provide other cellular / WLAN communications services. The components of the RSU may be packaged in a weatherproof enclosure suitable for outdoor installation and may include a network interface controller to provide a wired connection (e.g., Ethernet) to a traffic signal controller or a backhaul network. Furthermore, one or more V2X RATs may be employed, which allow V2X nodes to communicate directly with one another, with infrastructure equipment (e.g., AN 208), and / or other devices / nodes. In some implementations, at least two distinct V2X RATs may be used, including WLAN V2X (W-V2X) RATs based on IEEE V2X technologies (e.g., DSRC for the U.S. and ITS-G5 for Europe) and cellular V2X (C-V2X) RATs based on 3 GPP V2X technologies (e.g., LTE V2X, 5G / NR V2X, and beyond). In one example, the C-V2X RAT may utilize a C-V2X air interface, and the WLAN V2X RAT may utilize a W-V2X air interface.
[0100] The W-V2X RATs include, for example, IEEE Guide for Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments (WAVE) Architecture, IEEE Standards Association, IEEE 1609.0-2019 (10 Apr. 2019) (“[IEEE 16090]”), V2X Communications Message Set Dictionary, SAE IntT (23 Jul. 2020) (“[J2735_202007]”), Intelligent Transport Systems in the 5 GHz frequency band (ITS-G5), the [IEEE8021 Ip] (which is the layer 1 (LI) and layer 2 (L2) part of WAVE, DSRC, and ITS-G5), and / or IEEE Standard for Air Interface for Broadband Wireless Access Systems, IEEE Std 802.16-2017, pp. 1-2726 (02AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1Mar. 2018) (“[WiMAX]”). The term “DSRC” refers to vehicular communications in the 5.9 GHz frequency band that is generally used in the United States, while “ITS-G5” refers to vehicular communications in the 5.9 GHz frequency band in Europe. Since any number of different RATs are applicable (including [IEEE8021 Ip] RATs) that may be used in any geographic or political region, the terms “DSRC” (used, among other regions, in the U.S.) and “ITS-G5” (used, among other regions, in Europe) may be used interchangeably. The access layer for the ITS-G5 interface is outlined in ETSI EN 302663 Vl.3.1 (2020-01) (hereinafter, “[EN302663]”), which describes the access layer of the ITS-S reference architecture. The ITS-G5 access layer comprises [IEEE80211] (which now incorporates [IEEE8021 Ip]) and features for Decentralized Congestion Control (DCC) methods, as discussed in ETSI TS 102687 VI.2.1 (2018-04) (“[TS 102687]”). The access layer for 3GPP LTE-V2X-based interface(s) is outlined in, inter alia, ETSIEN 303 613 VI.1.1 (2020-01), 3GPP TS 23.285 vl6.2.0 (2019-12); and 3GPP 5G / NR-V2X is outlined in, inter alia, 3GPP TR 23.786 vl6.1.0 (2019-06) and 3GPP TS 23.287 vl8.0.0 (2023-03-31) (“[TS23287]”).
[0101] In examples where the RAN 204 is an E-UTRAN 210 with one or more eNBs 212, the E-UTRAN 210 provides an LTE air interface (Uu) with the parameters and characteristics at least as discussed in 3GPP TS 36.300 vl7.2.0 (2022-09-30) (“[TS36300]”). In examples where the RAN 204 is a nextgeneration (NG)-RAN 214 with a set of gNBs 216. Each gNB 216 connects with 5G-enabled UEs 202 using a 5G-NR air interface (also referred to as the Uu interface), with parameters and characteristics as discussed in [TS38300], among many other 3GPP standards. Where the NG-RAN 214 includes a set of ng-eNBs 218, the one or more ng-eNBs 218 connect with a UE 202 via the 5G Uu and / or LTE Uu interface. The gNBs 216 and the ng-eNBs 218 connect with the 5GC 240 through respective NG interfaces, which include an N2 interface, an N3 interface, and / or other interfaces. The gNB 216 and the ng-eNB 218 are connected over an Xn interface. Additionally, individual gNBs 216 are connected via respective Xn interfaces, and individual ng-eNBs 218 are connected via respective Xn interfaces. In some examples, the NG interface may be split into two parts: an NG user plane (NG-U) interface, which carries traffic data between the nodes of the NG-RAN 214 and a UPF 248 (e.g., N3AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1interface), and an NG control plane (NG-C) interface, which is a signaling interface between the nodes of the NG-RAN 214 and an AMF 244 (e.g., N2 interface).
[0102] The NG-RAN 214 may provide a 5G-NR air interface (which may also be referred to as a Uu interface) with the following characteristics: variable SCS; CP-OFDM for DL, CP-OFDM, and DFT-s-OFDM for UL; polar, repetition, simplex, and Reed-Muller codes for control and LDPC for data. The 5G-NR air interface may rely on CSI-RS, PDSCH / PDCCH DMRS, similar to the LTE air interface. The 5G-NR air interface may not use a CRS but may use PBCH DMRS for PBCH demodulation, PTRS for phase tracking for PDSCH, and a tracking reference signal for time tracking. The 5G-NR air interface may operate on FR1 bands that include bands from 410 MHz to 7125 MHz or FR2 bands that include bands from 24.25 GHz to 71 GHz. The 5G-NR air interface may include an SSB, which is an area of a downlink resource grid that includes PSS / SSS / PBCH.
[0103] The 5G-NR air interface may utilize BWPs for various purposes. For example, BWP can be used to adapt the SCS dynamically. For example, the UE 202 can be configured with multiple BWPs, with each BWP configuration having a different SCS. When a BWP change is indicated to the UE 202, the SCS of the transmission is changed as well. Another use case example of BWP is related to power saving. In particular, multiple BWPs can be configured for the UE 202 with different amounts of frequency resources (e.g., PRBs) to support data transmission under different traffic loading scenarios. A BWP containing a smaller number of PRBs can be used for data transmission with a small traffic load while allowing power saving at the UE 202 and, in some cases, at the gNB 216. A BWP containing a larger number of PRBs can be used for scenarios with higher traffic load.
[0104] In some implementations, individual gNBs 216 can include a gNB-CU and a set of gNB-DUs. Additionally or alternatively, gNBs 216 can include one or more RUs. In these implementations, the gNB-CU may be connected to each gNB-DU via respective Fl interfaces. In the case of network sharing with multiple cell ID broadcasts, each cell identity associated with a subset of PLMNs corresponds to a gNB-DU, and the gNB-CU is connected to share the sameAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1physical layer of cell resources. For resiliency, a gNB-DU may be connected to multiple gNB-CUs by an appropriate implementation. Additionally, a gNB-CU can be separated into gNB-CU control plane (gNB-CU-CP) and gNB-CU user plane (gNB-CU-UP) functions. The gNB-CU-CP is connected to a gNB-DU through an Fl control plane interface (Fl-C), the gNB-CU-UP is connected to the gNB-DU through an Fl user plane interface (Fl-U), and the gNB-CU-UP is connected to the gNB-CU-CP through an El interface. In some implementations, one gNB-DU is connected to only one gNB-CU-CP, and one gNB-CU-UP is connected to only one gNB-CU-CP. For resiliency, a gNB-DU and / or a gNB-CU-UP may be connected to multiple gNB-CU-CPs by an appropriate implementation. One gNB-DU can be connected to multiple gNB-CU-UPs under the control of the same gNB-CU-CP, and one gNB-CU-UP can be connected to multiple DUs under the control of the same gNB-CU-CP. Data forwarding between gNB-CU-UPs during intra-gNB-CU-CP handover within a gNB may be supported by Xn-U.
[0105] Similarly, individual ng-eNBs 218 can include an ng-eNB-CU and a set of ng-eNB-DUs. In these implementations, the ng-eNB-CU and each ng-eNB-DU are connected via respective W1 interfaces. An ng-eNB can include an ng-eNB-CU-CP, one or more ng-eNB-CU-UP(s), and one or more ng-eNB-DU(s). An ng-eNB-CU-CP and an ng-eNB-CU-UP are connected via the El interface. An ng-eNB-DU is connected to an ng-eNB-CU-CP via the Wl-C interface and to an ng-eNB-CU-UP via the Wl-U interface. The general principle described herein with respect to gNB aspects also applies to ng-eNB aspects and corresponding El and W1 interfaces if not explicitly specified otherwise.
[0106] The node hosting the user plane part of the PDCP protocol layer (e.g., gNB-CU, gNB-CU-UP, and for EN-DC, MeNB, or SgNB, depending on the bearer split) performs user inactivity monitoring. Further, it informs its inactivity or (re)activation to the node having a control plane connection towards the core network (e.g., over El, X2, or the like). The node hosting the RLC protocol layer (e.g., gNB-DU) may perform user inactivity monitoring and further inform its inactivity or (re)activation to the node hosting the control plane (e.g., gNB-CU or gNB-CU-CP).AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0107] In these implementations, the NG-RAN 214 is layered into a Radio Network Layer (RNL) and a Transport Network Layer (TNL). The NG-RAN 214 architecture (e.g., the NG-RAN logical nodes and interfaces between them) is part of the RNL. For each NG-RAN interface (e.g., NG, Xn, Fl, and the like), the related TNL protocol and the functionality are specified, for example, in [TS 38.401], The TNL provides services for user plane transport and / or signaling transport. In NG-Flex configurations, each NG-RAN node is connected to all AMFs, 244 of which are AMF sets within an AMF region, supporting at least one slice, also supported by the NG-RAN node. The AMF Set and the AMF Region are defined in [TS 23.501],
[0108] The RAN 204 is communicatively coupled to CN 220, which includes network elements and / or network functions (NFs) to provide various functions to support data and telecommunications services to customers / subscribers (e.g., UE 202). The components of the CN 220 may be implemented in one physical node or separate physical nodes. In some examples, NFV may be utilized to virtualize any or all of the functions provided by the network elements of the CN 220 onto physical compute / storage resources in servers, switches, and the like. A logical instantiation of the CN 220 may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instantiation of a portion of the CN 220 may be referred to as a network subslice.
[0109] The CN 220 may be an LTE CN 220 (also referred to as an Evolved Packet Core (EPC) 222). The EPC 222 may include MME 224, SGW 226, SGSN 228, HSS 230, PGW 232, and PCRF 234 coupled with one another over interfaces (or “reference points”) as shown. The NFs in the EPC 222 are briefly introduced as follows.
[0110] The MME 224 implements mobility management functions to track the UE 202's current location and facilitate paging, bearer activation / deactivation, handovers, gateway selection, authentication, and the like. The SGW 226 terminates an SI interface toward the RAN and routes data packets between the RAN and the EPC 222. The SGW 226 may serve as a local mobility anchor point for inter-RAN node handovers and as an anchor for inter-3GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful intercept, charging, and some policy enforcement. The SGSN 228 tracks the UE 202's location andAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1performs security functions and access control. The SGSN 228 also performs inter-EPC node signaling for mobility between different RAT networks; PDN and S-GW selection as specified by MME 224; MME 224 selection for handovers; and the like.
[0111] The S3 reference point between the MME 224 and the SGSN 228 enables the exchange of user and bearer information for inter-3 GPP access network mobility in idle / active states. The HSS 230 includes a database for network users, including subscription-related information to support the network entities’ handling of communication sessions. The HSS 230 can support routing / roaming, authentication, authorization, naming / addressing resolution, location-dependent services, and the like.
[0112] An S6a reference point between the HSS 230 and the MME 224 may enable the transfer of subscription and authentication data for authenticating / authorizing user access to the EPC 222. The PGW 232 may terminate an SGi interface toward a data network (DN) 236 that may include an application (app) / content server 238. The PGW 232 routes data packets between the EPC 222 and the DN 236. The PGW 232 is communicatively coupled with the SGW 226 by an S5 reference point to facilitate user plane tunneling and tunnel management. The PGW 232 may further include a node for policy enforcement and charging data collection (e.g., PCEF). Additionally, the SGi reference point may communicatively couple the PGW 232 with the same or different DN 236. The PGW 232 may be communicatively coupled with a PCRF 234 via a Gx reference point. The PCRF 234 is the policy and charging control element of the EPC 222. The PCRF 234 is communicatively coupled to the app / content server 238 to determine appropriate QoS and charging parameters for service flows. The PCRF 234 also provisions associated rules into a PCEF (via Gx reference point) with appropriate TFT and QCI.
[0113] The CN 220 may be a 5GC 240, including an AUSF 242, AMF 244, SMF 246, UPF 248, NSSF 250, NEF 252, NRF 254, PCF 256, UDM 258, and AF 260 coupled with one another over various interfaces as shown. The NFs in the 5GC 240 are briefly introduced as follows.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0114] The AUSF 242 stores data for UE 202 authentication and handles authentication-related functionality. The AUSF 242 may facilitate a common authentication framework for various access types.
[0115] The AMF 244 allows other functions of the 5GC 240 to communicate with the UE 202 and the RAN 204, and to subscribe to notifications about mobility events for the UE 202. The AMF 244 is also responsible for registration management (e.g., UE 202 registration), connection management, reachability management, mobility management, lawful interception of AMF-related events, and access authentication and authorization. The AMF 244 provides transport for SM messages between the UE 202 and the SMF 246 and acts as a transparent proxy for routing SM messages. The AMF 244 also provides transport for SMS messages between the UE 202 and an SMSF. The AMF 244 interacts with the AUSF 242 and the UE 202 to perform various security-anchor and context-management functions. Furthermore, the AMF 244 is a termination point for a RAN-CP interface, which includes the N2 reference point between the RAN 204 and the AMF 244. The AMF 244 is also a termination point of NAS (Nl) signaling and performs NAS ciphering and integrity protection.
[0116] The AMF 244 also supports NAS signaling with the UE 202 over an N3IWF interface. The N3IWF provides access to untrusted entities. N3IWF may be a termination point for the N2 interface between the RAN 204 and the AMF 244 for the control plane, and may be a termination point for the N3 reference point between the RAN 204 and the UPF 248 for the user plane. As such, the AMF 244 handles N2 signaling from the SMF 246 and the AMF 244 for PDU sessions and quality of service, encapsulates / de-encapsulates packets for IPSec and N3 tunneling, marks N3 user-plane packets in the uplink, and enforces quality of service corresponding to N3 packet marking taking into account quality of service requirements associated with such marking received over N2. N3IWF may also relay UL and DL control-plane NAS signaling between the UE 202 and AMF 244 via an Nl reference point between the UE 202 and the AMF 244, and relay uplink and downlink user-plane packets between the UE 202 and UPF 248. The N3IWF also provides mechanisms for IPsec tunnel establishment with the UE 202. The AMF 244 may exhibit a NamfAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1service-based interface and may be a termination point for an N14 reference point between two AMFs 244 and an N17 reference point between the AMF 244 and a 5G-EIR (not shown by FIG. 2).
[0117] The SMF 246 is responsible for SM (e.g., session establishment, tunnel management between UPF 248 and AN 208); UE IP address allocation and management (including optional authorization); selection and control of UP function; configuring traffic steering at UPF 248 to route traffic to the proper destination; termination of interfaces toward policy control functions; controlling part of policy enforcement, charging, and quality of service; lawful intercept (for SM events and interface to LI system); termination of SM parts of NAS messages; downlink data notification; initiating AN-specific SM information, sent via AMF 244 over N2 to AN 208; and determining SSC mode of a session. SM refers to the management of a PDU session, and a PDU session or “session” refers to a PDU connectivity service that provides or enables the exchange of PDUs between the UE 202 and the DN 236. The SMF 246 may also include the following functionalities to support edge computing enhancements (see, e.g., [TS23548]): selection of EASDF 261 and provision of its address to the UE as the DNS server for the PDU session; usage of EASDF 261 services as defined in [TS23548]; and for supporting the application layer architecture defined in [TS23558], provision and updates of ECS address configuration information to the UE. Discovery and selection procedures for EASDFs 261 are discussed in [TS23501] § 6.3.23.
[0118] The UPF 248 acts as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter-RAT mobility, an external PDU session point of interconnect to DN 236, and a branching point to support multi-homed PDU sessions. The UPF 248 also performs packet routing and forwarding, packet inspection, enforces user plane part of policy rules, lawfully intercepts packets (UP collection), performs traffic usage reporting, performs quality of service handling for a user plane (e.g., packet filtering, gating, UL / DL rate enforcement), performs uplink traffic verification (e.g., SDF-to-QoS flow mapping), transport-level packet marking in the uplink and downlink, and performs downlink packet buffering and downlink data notification triggering. UPF 248 may include an uplink classifier to support routing traffic flows to a data network.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0119] The NSSF 250 selects a set of network slice instances serving the UE 202. The NSSF 250 also determines allowed NSSAI and the mapping to the subscribed S-NSSAIs, if needed. The NSSF 250 also determines an AMF set to be used to serve the UE 202 or a list of candidate AMFs 244 based on a suitable configuration and possibly by querying the NRF 254. The selection of a set of network slice instances for the UE 202 may be triggered by the AMF 244 with which the UE 202 is registered by interacting with the NSSF 250; this may lead to a change of AMF 244. The NSSF 250 interacts with the AMF 244 via an N22 reference point and may communicate with another NSSF in a visited network via an N31 reference point (not shown).
[0120] The NEF 252 securely exposes services and capabilities provided by 3GPP NFs for third-party, internal exposure / re-exposure, AFs 260, edge computing, or fog computing systems (e.g., edge compute node, and the like). In such examples, the NEF 252 may authenticate, authorize, or throttle the AFs. NEF 252 may also translate information exchanged with the AF 260 and information exchanged with internal network functions. For example, the NEF 252 may translate between an AF-Service-Identifier and an internal 5GC information. NEF 252 may also receive information from other NFs based on the capabilities of other NFs that are exposed. This information may be stored at the NEF 252 as structured data or at a data storage NF using standardized interfaces. The stored information can then be re-exposed by the NEF 252 to other NFs and AFs or used for other purposes, such as analytics.
[0121] The NRF 254 supports service discovery functions, receives NF discovery requests from NF instances, and provides information on the discovered NF instances to the requesting NF instances. NRF 254 also maintains information on available NF instances and their supported services. The NRF 254 also supports service discovery functions, wherein the NRF 254 receives an NF Discovery Request from an NF instance or an SCP (not shown) and provides information about the discovered NF instances to the NF instance or SCP.
[0122] The PCF 256 provides policy rules to control plane functions and enforces them, and it may also support a unified policy framework to govern network behavior. The PCF 256 may also implement a front end to accessAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1subscription information relevant to policy decisions from a unified data repository (UDR) within the UDM 258. In addition to communicating with functions via reference points, as shown, the PCF 256 also provides an Npcf service-based interface.
[0123] The UDM 258 handles subscription-related information to support the network entities’ handling of communication sessions and stores UE 202's subscription data. For example, subscription data may be communicated via an N8 reference point between the UDM 258 and the AMF 244. The UDM 258 may include two parts: an application front end and a UDR. The UDR may store subscription data and policy data for the UDM 258 and the PCF 256, and / or structured data for exposure and application data (including PFDs for application detection and application request information for multiple UEs 202) for the NEF 252. The Nudr service-based interface may be exhibited by the UDR to allow the UDM 258, PCF 256, and NEF 252 to access a particular set of stored data, as well as to read, update (e.g., add, modify), delete, and subscribe to notification of relevant data changes in the UDR. The UDM 258 may include a UDM-FE, which is in charge of processing credentials, location management, subscription management, and so on. Several different front ends may serve the same user in different transactions. The UDM-FE accesses subscription information stored in the UDR and performs authentication credential processing, user identification handling, access authorization, registration / mobility management, and subscription management. In addition to communicating with other NFs over reference points, as shown, the UDM 258 may exhibit the Nudm service-based interface.
[0124] Edge Application Server Discovery Function (EASDF) 261 exhibits a Neasdf service-based interface and is connected to the SMF 246 via an N88 interface. One or multiple EASDF instances may be deployed within a PLMN, and interactions between 5GC NF(s) and the EASDF 261 take place within a PLMN. The EASDF 261 includes one or more of the following functionalities: registering to NRF 254 for EASDF 261 discovery and selection; handling the DNS messages according to the instruction from the SMF 246; and / or terminating DNS security if used. Handling the DNS messages according to the instruction from the SMF 246 includes one or more of the followingAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1functionalities: receiving DNS message handling rules and / or BaselineDNSPattern from the SMF 246; exchanging DNS messages from / with the UE 202; forwarding DNS messages to C-DNS or L-DNS for DNS query; adding EDNS client subnet (ECS) option into DNS query for an FQDN; reporting to the SMF 246 the information related to the received DNS messages; and / or buffering / discarding DNS messages from the UE 202 or DNS Server. The EASDF has direct user plane connectivity (e.g., without any NAT) with the PSA UPF over N6 for the transmission of DNS signaling exchanged with the UE. The deployment of a NAT between EASDF 261 and PSA UPF 248 may or may not be supported. Additional aspects of the EASDF 261 are discussed in [TS23548],
[0125] AF 260 provides application influence on traffic routing, provides access to NEF 252, and interacts with the policy framework for policy control. The AF 260 may influence UPF 248 (re)selection and traffic routing. Based on operator deployment, when AF 260 is considered to be a trusted entity, the network operator may permit AF 260 to interact directly with relevant NFs. In some implementations, the AF 260 is used for edge computing implementations.
[0126] The 5GC 240 may enable edge computing by selecting operator / 3rd party services to be geographically close to the point where the UE 202 is attached to the network. This may reduce latency and network load. In edge computing implementations, the 5GC 240 may select a UPF 248 close to the UE 202 and execute traffic steering from the UPF 248 to DN 236 via the N6 interface. This may be based on the UE subscription data, UE location, and information provided by the AF 260, which allows the AF 260 to influence UPF (re)selection and traffic routing.
[0127] The DN 236 may represent various network operator services, Internet access, or third-party services provided by one or more servers, including, for example, app / content server 238. The DN 236 may be an external public operator, a private PDN, or an intra-operator packet data network, for example, for the provision of IMS services. In this example, the app / content server 238 can be coupled to an IMS via an S-CSCF or the I-CSCF. In some implementations, the DN 236 may represent one or more local area DNs (LADNs), which are DNs (or DN names (DNNs)) that are accessible by a UEAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1202 in one or more specific areas. Outside these specific areas, the UE 202 cannot access the LADN / DN.
[0128] Additionally, or alternatively, the DN 236 may be an edge DN 236, which is a (local) DN that supports the architecture for enabling edge applications. In these examples, the app / content server 238 may represent the physical hardware systems / devices providing app server functionality and / or the application software resident in the cloud or at an edge compute node that performs server function(s). In some examples, the app / content server 238 provides an edge hosting environment that supports the Edge Application Server's execution.
[0129] In some examples, the 5GS can use one or more edge compute nodes to provide an interface and offload processing of wireless communication traffic. In these examples, the edge compute nodes may be included in or co-located with one or more RANs. For example, the edge compute nodes can provide connectivity between the RAN 214 and the UPF 248 in the 5GC 240. The edge compute nodes can use one or more NFV instances instantiated on virtualization infrastructure within the edge compute nodes to process wireless connections to and from the RAN 214 and UPF 248.
[0130] In some implementations, the edge compute nodes provide a distributed computing environment for application and service hosting, as well as storage and processing resources, so that data and / or content can be processed in close proximity to subscribers (e.g., users of UEs 202) for faster response times. The edge compute nodes also support multitenancy run-time and hosting environment s) for applications, including virtual appliance applications that may be delivered as packaged virtual machine (VM) images, middleware applications, and infrastructure services, content delivery services, including content caching, mobile big data analytics, and computational offloading, among others. Computational offloading involves moving computational tasks, workloads, applications, and / or services from UEs 202, CN 220, DN 236, and / or server(s) 238 to edge compute nodes, or vice versa. For example, a device application or client application operating in a UE 202 may offload application tasks or workloads to one or more edge compute nodes. In another example, anAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1edge compute node may offload application tasks or workloads to a set of UEs 202 (e.g., for distributed machine learning computation and / or the like).
[0131] The edge compute nodes may include or be part of an edge system that employs one or more edge computing technologies (ECTs) (also referred to as an “edge computing framework” or the like). The edge compute nodes may also be referred to as “edge hosts” or “edge servers.” The edge system includes a collection of edge servers and edge management systems (not shown) necessary to run edge computing applications within an operator network or a subset of an operator network. Edge servers are physical computer systems that may include an edge platform and / or virtualization infrastructure and provide compute, storage, and network resources to edge computing applications. Each of the edge servers is disposed at an edge of a corresponding access network and is arranged to provide computing resources and / or various services (e.g., computational task and / or workload offloading, cloud-computing capabilities, IT services, and other like resources and / or services as discussed herein) in relatively close proximity to UEs 202. The VI of the edge compute nodes provides virtualized environments and virtualized resources for the edge hosts, and the edge computing applications may run as VMs and / or application containers on top of the VI.
[0132] In one example implementation, the ECT is and / or operates according to the MEC framework, as discussed in ETSI GR MEC 001 v3.1.1 (2022-01), ETSI GS MEC 003 v3.1.1 (2022-03), ETSI GS MEC 009 v3.1.1 (2021-06), ETSI GS MEC 010-1 vl.1.1 (2017-10), ETSI GS MEC 010-2 v2.2.1 (2022-02), ETSI GS MEC 011 v2.2.1 (2020-12), ETSI GS MEC 012 v2.2.1 (2022-02), ETSI GS MEC 013 v2.2.1 (2022-01), ETSI GS MEC 014 v2.1.1 (2021-03), ETSI GS MEC 015 v2.1.1 (2020-06), ETSI GS MEC 016 v2.2.1 (2020-04), ETSI GS MEC 021 v2.2.1 (2022-02), ETSI GR MEC 024 v2.1.1 (2019-11), ETSI GS MEC 028 v2.2.1 (2021-07), ETSI GS MEC 029 v2.2.1 (2022-01), ETSI MEC GS 030 v2.1.1 (2020-04), ETSI GRMEC 031 v2.1.1 (2020-10), U.S. Provisional App. No. 63 / 003,834 filed April 1, 2020 (“[US’834]”), and IntT App. No. PCT / US2020 / 066969 filed on December 23, 2020 (“[PCT’696]”) (collectively referred to herein as “[MEC]”), the contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties. This exampleAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1implementation (and / or in any other example implementation discussed herein) may also include NFV and / or other like virtualization technologies such as those discussed in ETSI GRNFV 001 vl.3.1 (2021-03), ETSI GS NFV 002 vl.2.1 (2014-12), ETSI GR NFV 003 vl .6.1 (2021-03), ETSI GS NFV 006 v2.1.1 (2021-01), ETSI GS NFV-INF 001 vl.1.1 (2015-01), ETSI GS NFV-INF 003 vl.1.1 (2014-12), ETSI GS NFV-INF 004 vl.1.1 (2015-01), ETSI GS NFV-MAN 001 vl.1.1 (2014-12), and / or Israel et al., OSM Release FIVE Technical Overview, ETSI Open Source MANO, OSM White Paper, 1st ed. (Jan. 2019), https: / / osm.etsi.org / images / OSM-Whitepaper-TechContent-ReleaseFIVE-FINAL.pdf (collectively referred to as “[ETSINFV]”), the contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties. Other virtualization technologies and / or service orchestration and automation platforms may be used, such as those discussed in E2E Network Slicing Architecture, GSMA, Official Doc. NG.127, vl.O (03 Jun. 2021), https: / / www.gsma.eom / newsroom / wp-content / uploads / / NG.127-vl.0-2.pdf, Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) documentation, Release Istanbul, v9.0.1 (17 Feb. 2022), https: / / docs.onap.org / en / latest / index.html (“[ONAP]”), 3GPP Service Based Management Architecture (SBMA) as discussed in 3GPP TS 28.533 V17.1.0 (2021-12-23) (“[TS28533]”), the contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.
[0133] In another example implementation, the ECT is and / or operates according to the 0-RAN framework. Typically, front-end and back-end device vendors and carriers have worked closely to ensure compatibility. The flip side of such a working model is that it becomes quite difficult to plug and play with other devices, and this can hamper innovation. To combat this and to promote openness and interoperability at every level, several key players interested in the wireless domain (e.g., carriers, device manufacturers, academic institutions, and / or the like) formed the Open RAN Alliance (“0-RAN”) in 2018. The O-RAN network architecture is a building block for designing virtualized RAN on programmable hardware with radio access control powered by AI / ML. Various aspects of the 0-RAN architecture are described in 0-RAN Architecture Description v07.00, 0-RAN Alliance WG1 (Oct. 2022) (“ [0-RAN. WG1.0-RAN-Architecture-Description]”); 0-RAN Operations and Maintenance Architecture Specification v04.00, 0-RAN Alliance WG1 (Feb. 2021)AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1(“[0-RAN.WG1. OAM- Architecture]”); 0-RAN Operations and Maintenance Interface Specification v04.00, 0-RAN Alliance WG1 (Feb. 2021) (“[O-RAN.WGl.Ol-Interface.O]”); 0-RAN Information Model and Data Models Specification vOl.OO, 0-RAN Alliance WG1 (Feb. 2021); O-RAN Working Group 1 Slicing Architecture v08.00 (Oct. 2022); O-RAN Working Group 2 (Non-RT RIC and Al interface WG) Al interface: Application Protocol v03.02 (Jul. 2021); O-RAN Working Group 1 Use Cases Detailed Specification v09.00 (Oct. 2022) (“[O-RAN. WG1.Use-Cases]”); O-RAN Working Group 2 (Non-RT RIC and Al interface WG) Al interface: General Aspects and Principles v03.00 (Oct. 2022) (“[O-RAN. WG2.A1GAP]”); O-RAN Working Group 2 (Non-RT RIC and Al interface WG) Al interface: Type Definitions v04.00 (Oct. 2021); O-RAN Working Group 2 (Non-RT RIC and Al interface WG) Al interface: Transport Protocol v02.00 (Oct. 2022); O-RAN Working Group 2 AI / ML workflow description and requirements v01.03, O-RAN Alliance WG2 (Oct.2021) (“[O-RAN.WG2.AIML]”); O-RAN Working Group 2 (Non-RT RIC and Al interface WG) Non-RT RIC Architecture v02.01 (Oct. 2022); O-RAN Working Group 2 Non-RT RIC: Functional Architecture vOl.Ol, O-RAN Alliance WG2 (Jun. 2021); O-RAN Working Group 2 (Non-RT RIC and Al interface WG): R1 interface: General Aspects and Principles v03.00, O-RAN Alliance WG2 (Oct. 2022); O-RAN Working Group 3 Near-Real-time RAN Intelligent Controller Architecture & E2 General Aspects and Principles v02.02 (Jul. 2022) (“ [O-RAN. WG3.E2GAP]”); O-RAN Working Group 3 Near-Realtime Intelligent Controller E2 Service Model (E2SM) v02.01 (Mar. 2022) (“[O-RAN.WG3.E2SM]”); O-RAN Working Group 3 Near-Real-time Intelligent Controller E2 Service Model (E2SM), Cell Configuration and Control vOl.OO (Oct. 2022) (“[O-RAN. WG3.E2SM-CCC]”); O-RAN Working Group 3 Near-Real-time Intelligent Controller E2 Service Model (E2SM) KPM v02.03 (Oct.2022) (“[O-RAN.WG3.E2SM-KPM]”); O-RAN Working Group 3 Near-Realtime Intelligent Controller E2 Service Model (E2SM) RAN Function Network Interface (NI) vOl.OO (Feb. 2020) (“[O-RAN-WG3.E2SM-NI]”); O-RAN Working Group 3 Near-Real-time Intelligent Controller E2 Service Model (E2SM) RAN Control v01.03 (Oct. 2022) (“[O-RAN.WG3.E2SM-RC]”); O-RAN Working Group 3, Near-Real-time Intelligent Controller, E2 Application Protocol (E2AP) v02.03 (Oct. 2022) (“ [O-RAN. WG3.E2AP]”); O-RANAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1Working Group 3 (Near-Real-time RAN Intelligent Controller and E2 Interface Working Group): Near-RT RIC Architecture v03.00 (Oct. 2022) (“[O-RAN.WG3.RICARCH]”); O-RAN Working Group 4 (Open Fronthaul Interfaces WG) Control, User and Synchronization Plane Specification v09.00 (Jul. 2022) (“[O-RAN-WG4.CUS.0]”); O-RAN Fronthaul Working Group 4 Cooperative Transport Interface Transport Control Plane Specification v02.00, O-RAN Alliance WG4 (Jun. 2021); O-RAN Fronthaul Working Group 4 Cooperative Transport Interface Transport Management Plane Specification v02.00 (Jun. 2021); O-RAN Fronthaul Working Group 4 (Open Fronthaul Interfaces WG): Management Plane Specification v09.00 (Jul. 2022) (“[O-RAN.WG4.MP.0]”); O-RAN Alliance Working Group 501 Interface specification for O-CU-UP and O-CU-CP v04.00 (Oct. 2022); O-RAN Alliance Working Group 501 Interface specification for 0-DU v05.00 (Oct. 2022); O-RAN Open Fl / Wl / El / X2 / Xn Interfaces Working Group Transport Specification vOl.OO, O-RAN Alliance WG5 (Apr. 2020); O-RAN Working Group 6 (Cloudification and Orchestration) Cloud Architecture and Deployment Scenarios for O-RAN Virtualized RAN v04.00 (Oct. 2022) (“[O-RAN. WG6.CADS]”); O-RAN Cloud Platform Reference Designs v02.00, O-RAN Alliance WG6 (Feb. 2021); O-RAN Working Group 602 Interface General Aspects and Principles v02.00 (Oct. 2022); O-RAN Working Group 6 (Cloudification and Orchestration Work Group); O-RAN Acceleration Abstraction Layer General Aspects and Principles v04.00 (Oct. 2022); O-RAN Working Group 6: O-Cloud Notification API Specification for Event Consumersv03.00 (“[O-RAN.WG6.O-Cloud Notification API]”); O-RAN White Box Hardware Working Group Hardware Reference Design Specification for Indoor Pico Cell with Fronthaul Split Option 6 v02.00, O-RAN Alliance WG7 (Oct. 2021) (“[O-RAN. WG7.IPC-HRD-Opt6]”); O-RAN WG7 Hardware Reference Design Specification for Indoor Picocell (FR1) with Split Architecture Option 7-2 v03.00, O-RAN Alliance WG7 (Oct. 2021) (“[O-RAN.WG7.IPC-HRD-Opt7-2]”); O-RAN WG7 Hardware Reference Design Specification for Indoor Picocell (FR1) with Split Architecture Option 8 v03.00 (Oct. 2021) (“[O-RAN. WG7.IPC-HRD-Opt8]”); O-RAN White Box Hardware Working Group Hardware Reference Design Specification for Outdoor Micro Cell with Split Architecture Option 7.2 v03.00, O-RAN Alliance WG7 (Oct. 2022) (“[O-RAN. WG7.OMC-HRD-Opt7-2]”); O-AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1RAN White Box Hardware Working Group Hardware Reference Design Specification for Outdoor Macro Cell with Split Architecture Option 7.2 v03.00, O-RAN Alliance WG7 (Jul. 2022) (“[0-RAN.WG7.0MAC-HRD]”); O-RAN Open X-haul Transport Working Group Management interfaces for Transport Network Elements v04.00, O-RAN Alliance WG9 (Jul. 2022); O-RAN Open X-haul Transport Working Group Synchronization Architecture and Solution Specification v02.00, O-RAN Alliance WG9 (Mar. 2022); O-RAN Open Xhaul Transport WG9 WDM-based Fronthaul Transport v2.0, O-RAN Alliance WG9 (Mar. 2022); O-RAN Open Transport Working Group 9 Xhaul Packet Switched Architectures and Solutions v03.00, O-RAN Alliance WG9 (Jul. 2022) (“[O-RAN.WG9.XPSAAS]”); O-RAN Operations and Maintenance Architecture v07.00, O-RAN Alliance WG10 (Jul. 2022) (“[0-RAN.WG10.0AM-Architecture]”); O-RAN Operations and Maintenance Interface Specification v07.00, O-RAN Alliance WG10 (Jul. 2022); O-RAN Operations and Maintenance Interface Specification v08.00, O-RAN Alliance WG10 (Oct. 2022) (“[O-RAN.WGlO.Ol-Interface.O]”); O-RAN: Towards an Open and Smart RAN, O-RAN Alliance, White Paper (Oct. 2018); and U.S. App. No. 17 / 484,743 filed on 24 Sep. 2021 (collectively referred to as “[O-RAN]”), the contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
[0134] In another example implementation, the ECT is and / or operates according to the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) System Aspects Working Group 6 (SA6) Architecture for enabling Edge Applications (referred to as “3GPP edge computing”) as discussed in 3GPP TS 23.558 vl8.1.0 (2022-12-23) (“[TS23558]”), 3GPP TS 23.501 vl8.0.0 (2022-12-21) (“[TS23501]”), 3GPP TS 23.548 vl7.4.0 (2022-09-22) (“[TS23548]”), 3GPP TR 23.700-98 V18.0.0 (2022-12-23) (“[TR23700-98]”), 3GPP TS 23.222 vl8.0.0 (2022-12-23) (“[TS23222]”), TS 33.122 vl8.0.0 (2022-12-16) (“[TS33122]”), and 3GPP TS 29.222 V17.1.0 (2021-06-25) (“[TS29222]”), 3GPP TS 23.502 vl8.0.0 (2022-12-21) (“[TS23502]”), 3GPP TS 29.522 vl8.0.0 (2022-12-16) (“[TS29522]”), 3GPP TS 29.122 vl8.0.0 (2022-12-16) (“[TS29122]”), 3GPP TS 23.682 vl7.3.0 (2022-06-15) (“[TS23682]”), 3GPP TS 23.434 vl8.3.0 (2022-12-23) (“[TS23434]”), and 3GPP TS 23.401 vl8.0.0 (2022-12-21) (collectively referred to as “[SA6Edge]”), the contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0135] In another example implementation, the ECT is and / or operates according to the Intel® Smart Edge Open framework (formerly known as OpenNESS) as discussed in Intel® Smart Edge Open Developer Guide, version 21.09 (30 Sep. 2021), available at: https: / / smart-edge-open.github.io / (“[ISEO]”), the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
[0136] In another example implementation, the ECT operates according to the Multi-Access Management Services (MAMS) framework as discussed in Kanugovi et al., Multi-Access Management Services (MAMS), Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Request for Comments (RFC) 8743 (Mar. 2020) (“[RFC8743]”), Ford et al., TCP Extensions for Multipath Operation with Multiple Addresses, IETF RFC 8684, (Mar. 2020), De Coninck et al., Multipath Extensions for QUIC (MP-QUIC), IETF draft-deconinck-quic-multipath-07, IETF, QUIC Working Group (03 -May-2021), Zhu, et al., User-Plane Protocols for Multiple Access Management Service, IETF draft-zhu-intarea-mams-user-protocol-09, IETF, INTAREA (04-Mar-2020), and Zhu et al., Generic MultiAccess (GMA) Convergence Encapsulation Protocols, IETF RFC 9188 (Feb. 2022) (collectively referred to as “[MAMS]”), the contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.
[0137] It should be understood that the aforementioned edge computing frameworks / ECTs and services deployment examples are only illustrative examples of ECTs and that the present techniques may be applicable to many other or additional edge computing / networking technologies in various combinations and layouts of devices located at the edge of a network, including the various edge computing networks / sy stems described herein. Further, the techniques disclosed herein may relate to other loT edge network systems and configurations, and other intermediate processing entities and architectures may also be applicable to the disclosed techniques. Examples of such edge computing / networking technologies include [MEC]; [0-RAN]; [ISEO];[SA6Edge]; Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) (also referred to as “Content Distribution Networks” or the like); Mobility Service Provider (MSP) edge computing and / or Mobility as a Service (MaaS) provider systems (e.g., used in AECC architectures); Nebula edge-cloud systems; Fog computing systems;AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1Cloudlet edge-cloud systems; Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) systems; Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter (CORD), mobile CORD (M-CORD), and / or Converged Multi-Access and Core (COMAC) systems; and / or the like. Further, the techniques disclosed herein may relate to other loT edge network systems and configurations, and other intermediate processing entities and architectures may also be used for purposes of the disclosed techniques.
[0138] The interfaces of the 5GC 240 include reference points and servicebased interfaces. The reference points include N1 (between the UE 202 and the AMF 244), N2 (between RAN 214 and AMF 244), N3 (between RAN 214 and UPF 248), N4 (between the SMF 246 and UPF 248), N5 (between PCF 256 and AF 260), N6 (between UPF 248 and DN 236), N7 (between SMF 246 and PCF 256), N8 (between UDM 258 and AMF 244), N9 (between two UPFs 248), N10 (between the UDM 258 and the SMF 246), Nil (between the AMF 244 and the SMF 246), N12 (between AUSF 242 and AMF 244), N13 (between AUSF 242 and UDM 258), N14 (between two AMFs 244; not shown), N15 (between PCF 256 and AMF 244 in case of a non-roaming scenario, or between the PCF 256 in a visited network and AMF 244 in case of a roaming scenario), N16 (between two SMFs 246; not shown), and N22 (between AMF 244 and NSSF 250). Other reference point representations not shown in Figure 2 can also be used. The service-based representation of Figure 2 represents NFs within the control plane that enable other authorized NFs to access their services. The service-based interfaces (SBIs) include Namf (SBI exhibited by AMF 244), Nsmf (SBI exhibited by SMF 246), Nnef (SBI exhibited by NEF 252), Npcf (SBI exhibited by PCF 256), Nudm (SBI exhibited by the UDM 258), Naf (SBI exhibited by AF 260), Nnrf (SBI exhibited by NRF 254), Nnssf (SBI exhibited by NSSF 250), Nausf (SBI exhibited by AUSF 242). Other service-based interfaces (e.g., Nudr, N5g-eir, and Nudsf) not shown in FIG. 2 can also be used. In some examples, the NEF 252 can provide an interface to edge compute nodes, which can be used to process wireless connections with the RAN 214.
[0139] In some implementations, the network architecture 200 may include an SMSF, which is responsible for SMS subscription checking and verification and relaying SM messages to / from the UE 202 to / from other entities, such as an SMS-GMSC / IWMSC / SMS-router. The SMS may also interact with AMF 244AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1and UDM 258 for a notification procedure that the UE 202 is available for SMS transfer (e.g., setting a UE not reachable flag and notifying UDM 258 when UE 202 is available for SMS).
[0140] The 5GS may also include an SCP (or individual instances of the SCP) that supports indirect communication (see, e.g., 3GPP TS 23.501 section 7.1.1); delegated discovery (see, e.g., 3GPP TS 23.501 section 7.1.1); message forwarding and routing to destination NF / NF service(s), communication security (e.g., authorization of the NF Service Consumer to access the NF Service Producer API) (see, e.g., 3GPP TS 33.501), load balancing, monitoring, overload control, and the like; and discovery and selection functionality for UDM(s) 258, AUSF(s) 242, UDR(s), PCF(s) 256 with access to subscription data stored in the UDR based on UE's SUPI, SUCI, or GPSI (see e.g., [TS23501] § 6.3). Load balancing, monitoring, and overload control functionality provided by the SCP may be implementation-specific. The SCP may be deployed in a distributed manner. More than one SCP can be present in the communication path between various NF Services. The SCP, although not an NF instance, can also be deployed in a distributed, redundant, and scalable manner.
[0141] FIG. 3 schematically illustrates a wireless network 300 in accordance with various embodiments. The wireless network 300 may include a UE 302 in wireless communication with an AN 304. The UE 302 and AN 304 may be similar to, and substantially interchangeable with, like-named components described elsewhere herein.
[0142] The UE 302 may be communicatively coupled with the AN 304 via connection 306. Connection 306 is illustrated as an air interface to enable communicative coupling and can be consistent with cellular communications protocols such as an LTE protocol or a 5G NR protocol operating at FR2 (mmWave) or FR1 (sub-7 GHz) frequencies.
[0143] The UE 302 may include a host platform 308 coupled with a modem platform 310. The host platform 308 may include application processing circuitry 312, which may be coupled with protocol processing circuitry 314 of the modem platform 310. The application processing circuitry 312 may run various applications for the UE 302 that source / sink application data. The application processing circuitry 312 may further implement one or more layerAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1operations to transmit / receive application data to / from a data network. These layer operations may include transport (for example, UDP) and Internet (for example, IP) operations.
[0144] The protocol processing circuitry 314 may implement one or more layer operations to facilitate the transmission or reception of data over connection 306. The layer operations implemented by the protocol processing circuitry 314 may include, for example, MAC, RLC, PDCP, RRC, and NAS operations.
[0145] The modem platform 310 may further include digital baseband circuitry 316 that may implement one or more layer operations that are “below” the layer operations performed by the protocol processing circuitry 314 in a network protocol stack. These operations may include, for example, PHY operations including one or more of HARQ-ACK functions, scrambling / descrambling, encoding / decoding, layer mapping / de-mapping, modulation symbol mapping, received symbol / bit metric determination, multiantenna port precoding / decoding, which may include one or more of space-time, space-frequency, or spatial coding, reference signal generation / detection, preamble sequence generation and / or decoding, synchronization sequence generation / detection, control channel signal blind decoding, and other related functions.
[0146] The modem platform 310 may further include transmit circuitry 318, receive circuitry 320, RF circuitry 322, and RF front end (RFFE) 324, which may include or connect to one or more antenna panels 326. Briefly, the transmit circuitry 318 may include a digital -to-analog converter, a mixer, intermediate frequency (IF) components, etc.; the receive circuitry 320 may include an analog-to-digital converter, a mixer, IF components, etc.; the RF circuitry 322 may include a low-noise amplifier, a power amplifier, power tracking components, etc.; the RFFE 324 may include filters (for example, surface / bulk acoustic wave filters), switches, antenna tuners, beamforming components (for example, phase-array antenna components), etc. The selection and arrangement of the components of the transmit circuitry 318, receive circuitry 320, RF circuitry 322, RFFE 324, and one or more antenna panels 326 (referred to generically as “transmit / receive components”) may be specific to details of aAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1specific implementation, such as, for example, whether the communication is TDM or FDM, in FR2 (mmWave) or FR1 (sub-7 GHz) frequencies, etc. In some embodiments, the transmit / receive components may be arranged in multiple parallel transmit / receive chains, may be disposed of in the same or different chips / modules, etc.
[0147] In some embodiments, the protocol processing circuitry 314 may include one or more instances of control circuitry (not shown) to provide control functions for the transmit / receive components.
[0148] A UE reception may be established by and via the one or more antenna panels 326, RFFE 324, RF circuitry 322, receive circuitry 320, digital baseband circuitry 316, and protocol processing circuitry 314. In some embodiments, the one or more antenna panels 326 may receive a transmission from the AN 304 by receive-beamforming signals received by a plurality of antennas / antenna elements of the one or more antenna panels 326.
[0149] A UE transmission may be established by and via the protocol processing circuitry 314, digital baseband circuitry 316, transmit circuitry 318, RF circuitry 322, RFFE 324, and one or more antenna panels 326. In some embodiments, the transmit components of the UE 302 may apply a spatial filter to the data to be transmitted to form a transmit beam emitted by the antenna elements of the one or more antenna panels 326.
[0150] Similar to the UE 302, the AN 304 may include a host platform 328 coupled with a modem platform 330. The host platform 328 may include application processing circuitry 332 coupled with protocol processing circuitry 334 of the modem platform 330. The modem platform may further include digital baseband circuitry 336, transmit circuitry 338, receive circuitry 340, RF circuitry 342, RFFE circuitry 344, and antenna panels 346. The components of the AN 304 may be similar to and substantially interchangeable with the like-named components of the UE 302. In addition to performing data transmission / reception as described above, the components of the AN 304 may perform various logical functions that include, for example, RNC functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management, and data packet scheduling.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0151] FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. Specifically, FIG. 4 shows a diagrammatic representation of hardware resources 400, including one or more processors (or processor cores) 410, one or more memory / storage devices 420, and one or more communication resources 430, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 440 or other interface circuitry. For embodiments where node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor 402 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices / sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources 400.
[0152] The one or more processors 410 may include, for example, a processor 412 and a processor 414. The one or more processors 410 may be, for example, a central processing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a digital signal processor (DSP) such as a baseband processor, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor (including those discussed herein), or any suitable combination thereof.
[0153] The memory / storage devices 420 may include a main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory / storage devices 420 may include but are not limited to, any type of volatile, non-volatile, or semivolatile memory such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random access memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), Flash memory, solid-state storage, etc.
[0154] The one or more communication resources 430 may include interconnection or network interface controllers, components, or other suitable devices to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 404 or one or more databases 406 or other network elements via a network 408. For example, the one or more communication resources 430 may include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via USB, Ethernet, etc.), cellular communicationAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1components, near-field communication (NFC) components, Bluetooth® (or Bluetooth Low Energy) components, Wi-Fi components, and other communication components.
[0155] Instructions 450 may comprise software, a program, an application, an applet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least one of the one or more processors 410 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. Instructions 450 may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the one or more processors 410 (e.g., within the processor’s cache memory), the memory / storage devices 420, or any suitable combination thereof.Furthermore, any portion of the instructions 450 may be transferred to the hardware resources 400 from any combination of one or more peripheral devices 404 or one or more databases 406. Accordingly, the memory of one or more processors 410, the memory / storage devices 420, one or more peripheral devices 404, and one or more databases 406 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.
[0156] FIG. 5 illustrates another example network architecture 500. The network architecture 500 may operate in a manner consistent with 3 GPP technical specifications or technical reports for 6G systems. In some examples, the network architecture 500 may operate concurrently with network architecture 200. For example, in some examples, network architecture 500 may share one or more frequency or bandwidth resources with network architecture 200. As one specific example, a UE (e.g., UE 502) may be configured to operate in both network architecture 500 and network architecture 200. Such a configuration may be based on a UE including circuitry configured for communication with the frequency and bandwidth resources of both network architectures 200 and 500. In general, several elements of network architecture 500 may share one or more characteristics with elements of network architecture 200. For the sake of brevity and clarity, such elements may not be repeated in the description of network architecture 500.
[0157] The network architecture 500 may include a UE 502, which may include any mobile or non-mobile computing device designed to communicate with a RAN 508 via an over-the-air connection. The UE 502 may be similar to, for example, UE 202. The UE 502 may be, but is not limited to, a smartphone,AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1tablet computer, wearable computer device, desktop computer, laptop computer, in-vehicle infotainment, in-car entertainment device, instrument cluster, a head-up display device, onboard diagnostic device, dashtop mobile equipment, mobile data terminal, electronic engine management system, electronic / engine control unit, electronic / engine control module, embedded system, sensor, microcontroller, control module, engine management system, networked appliance, machine-type communication device, M2M or D2D device, loT device, etc.
[0158] Although not explicitly shown in FIG. 5, in some examples, the network architecture 500 may include a set of UEs coupled directly with one another via a sidelink interface. The UEs may be M2M / D2D devices that communicate using physical sidelink channels such as, but not limited to, PSBCH, PSDCH, PSSCH, PSCCH, PSFCH, etc. Similarly, although not explicitly shown in FIG. 5, the UE 502 may be communicatively coupled with an AP, such as AP 206, as described with respect to FIG. 2. Additionally, although not explicitly shown in FIG. 5, in some examples, the RAN 508 may include one or more ANs, such as AN 208, as described with respect to FIG. 2. The RAN 508 and / or the AN of the RAN 508 may be referred to as a base station (BS), a RAN node, or using some other term or name.
[0159] The UE 502 and the RAN 508 may be configured to communicate via an air interface that may be referred to as a sixth-generation (6G) air interface. The 6G air interface may include one or more features, such as communication in terahertz (THz) or sub-THz bandwidth, or joint communication and sensing. As used herein, the term “joint communication and sensing” may refer to a system that allows for wireless communication as well as radar-based sensing via various types of multiplexing. As used herein, THz or sub-THz bandwidths may refer to communication in the 80 GHz and above frequency ranges. Such frequency ranges may additionally, or alternatively, be referred to as “millimeter wave” or “mmWave” frequency ranges.
[0160] The RAN 508 may allow for communication between the UE 502 and a 6G core network (CN) 510. Specifically, the RAN 508 may facilitate the transmission and reception of data between the UE 502 and the 6G CN 510. The 6G CN 510 may include various functions, such as NSSF 550, NEF 552, NRFAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1554, PCF 556, UDM 558, AF 560, SMF 546, and AUSF 542. The 6GCN 510 may additionally include UPF 548 and DN 539, as shown in FIG. 5.
[0161] Additionally, the RAN 508 may include various additional functions that are in addition to, or alternative to, the functions of a legacy cellular network, such as a 4G or 5G network. Two such functions may include a Compute Control Function (Comp CF) 524 and a Compute Service Function (Comp SF) 536. The Comp CF 524 and the Comp SF 536 may be parts or functions of the Computing Service Plane. Comp CF 524 may be a control plane function that provides functionalities such as management of the Comp SF 536, computing task context generation and management (e.g., create, read, modify, delete), interaction with the underlying computing infrastructure for computing resource management, etc. Comp SF 536 may be a user plane function that serves as the gateway to interface computing service users (such as UE 502) and computing nodes behind a Comp SF instance. Some functionalities of the Comp SF 536 may include parsing computing service data received from users to compute tasks executable by computing nodes, holding service mesh ingress gateway or service API gateway, service and charging policies enforcement, performance monitoring, and telemetry collection. In some examples, a Comp SF 536 instance may serve as the user plane gateway for a cluster of computing nodes. A Comp CF 524 instance may control one or more Comp SF 536 instances.
[0162] Two other such functions may include a Communication Control Function (Comm CF) 528 and a Communication Service Function (Comm SF) 538, which may be parts of the Communication Service Plane. The Comm CF 528 may be the control plane function for managing the Comm SF 538, communication session creation / configuration / releasing, and managing communication session context. The Comm SF 538 may be a user plane function for data transport. Comm CF 528 and Comm SF 538 may be considered as upgrades of SMF 246 and UPF 248, which were described with respect to a 5G system in FIG. 2. The upgrades provided by the Comm CF 528 and the Comm SF 538 may enable service-aware transport. For legacy (e.g., 4G or 5G) data transport, SMF 246 and UPF 248 may still be used.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0163] Two other such functions may include a Data Control Function (Data CF) 522 and a Data Service Function (Data SF) 532, which may be parts of the Data Service Plane. Data CF 522 may be a control plane function and provides functionalities such as Data SF 532 management, Data service creation / configuration / releasing, Data service context management, etc. Data SF 532 may be a user plane function and serve as the gateway between data service users (such as UE 502 and the various functions of the 6G CN 510) and data service endpoints behind the gateway. Specific functionalities may include parsing data service user data and forwarding it to corresponding data service endpoints, generating charging data, and reporting data service status.
[0164] Another such function may be the Service Orchestration and Chaining Function (SOCF) 520, which may discover, orchestrate, and chain up communication / computing / data services provided by functions in the network. Upon receiving service requests from users, SOCF 520 may interact with one or more of Comp CF 524, Comm CF 528, and Data CF 522 to identify Comp SF 536, Comm SF 538, and Data SF 532 instances, configure service resources, and generate the service chain, which could contain multiple Comp SF 536, Comm SF 538, and Data SF 532 instances and their associated computing endpoints. Workload processing and data movement may then be conducted within the generated service chain. The SOCF 520 may also be responsible for maintaining, updating, and releasing a created service chain.
[0165] Another such function may be the service registration function (SRF) 514, which may act as a registry for system services provided in the user plane, such as services provided by service endpoints behind Comp SF 536 and Data SF 532 gateways and services provided by the UE 502. The SRF 514 may be considered a counterpart of NRF 254, which may act as the registry for network functions.
[0166] Other such functions may include an evolved service communication proxy (eSCP) and a service infrastructure control function (SICF) 526, which may provide service communication infrastructure for control plane services and user plane services. The eSCP may be related to the service communication proxy (SCP) of 5G, with the addition of user plane service communication proxy capabilities. The eSCP is therefore expressed in two parts: eCSP-C 512 andAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1eSCP-U 534, for control plane service communication proxy and user plane service communication proxy, respectively. The SICF 526 may control and configure eCSP instances in terms of service traffic routing policies, access rules, load balancing configurations, performance monitoring, etc.
[0167] Another such function is the AMF 544. The AMF 544 may be similar to 244 but with additional functionality. Specifically, the AMF 544 may include potential functional repartition, such as moving the message forwarding functionality from the AMF 544 to the RAN 508.
[0168] Another such function is the service orchestration exposure function (SOEF) 518. The SOEF may be configured to expose service orchestration and chaining services to external users, such as applications.
[0169] The UE 502 may include an additional function that is referred to as a computing client service function (comp CSF) 504. The comp CSF 504 may have both the control plane functionalities and user plane functionalities and may interact with corresponding network-side functions, such as SOCF 520, Comp CF 524, Comp SF 536, Data CF 522, and / or Data SF 532, for service discovery, request / response, compute task workload exchange, etc. The comp CSF 504 may also work with network-side functions to decide whether a computing task should be run on the UE 502, the RAN 508, or an element of the 6G CN 510.
[0170] The UE 502 and / or the comp CSF 504 may include a service mesh proxy 506. The service mesh proxy 506 may act as a proxy for service-to-service communication in the user plane. Capabilities of the service mesh proxy 506 may include one or more of addressing, security, load balancing, and / or the like.
[0171] FIG. 6 depicts an example artificial intelligence (Al)-assisted communication architecture for communication between a UE 605 and a RAN 610. More specifically, as described in further detail below, AEmachine learning (ML) models may be used or leveraged to facilitate over-the-air communication between UE 605 and RAN 610.
[0172] In this example, the UE 605 and the RAN 610 operate in a manner consistent with 3GPP technical specifications and / or technical reports for 6G systems. In some examples, the wireless cellular communication between theAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1UE 605 and the RAN 610 may be part of or operate concurrently with network architectures 500, 200, and / or some other network described herein.
[0173] The UE 605 may be similar to and share one or more features with UE 202, UE 302, UE 502, UE 702, hardware resources 400, and / or some other UE or device(s), such as any of those described herein. The UE 605 may be, but is not limited to, a smartphone, tablet computer, wearable computer device, desktop computer, laptop computer, in-vehicle infotainment, in-car entertainment device, instrument cluster, a head-up display device, onboard diagnostic device, dashtop mobile equipment, mobile data terminal, electronic engine management system, electronic / engine control unit, electronic / engine control module, embedded system, sensor, microcontroller, control module, engine management system, networked appliance, machine-type communication device, M2M or D2D device, loT device, etc. The RAN 610 may be similar to, and share one or more features with, RAN 214, RAN 508, and / or some other RAN described herein.
[0174] As may be seen in FIG. 6, the Al-related elements of UE 605 may be similar to the Al-related elements of RAN 610. For the sake of discussion herein, a description of the various elements will be provided from the point of view of the UE 605. However, it will be understood that such discussion or description will apply to equally named / numbered elements of RAN 610 unless explicitly stated otherwise.
[0175] As previously noted, the UE 605 may include various elements or functions that are related to AI / ML. Such elements may be implemented as hardware, software, firmware, and / or some combination thereof. For example, one or more of the elements may be implemented as part of the same hardware (e.g., a chip or a multi-processor chip), software (e.g., a computing program), or firmware as another element.
[0176] One such element may be a data repository 615. The data repository 615 may be responsible for data collection and storage. Specifically, the data repository 615 may collect and store RAN configuration parameters, measurement data, performance key performance indicators (KPIs), model performance metrics, etc., for model training, update, and inference. More generally, collected data is stored in the repository. Stored data can beAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1discovered and extracted by other elements from the data repository 615. For example, as may be seen, the inference data selection / filtering element 650 may retrieve data from the data repository 615. In various examples, the UE 605 may be configured to discover and request data from the data repository 615 in the RAN and vice versa. More generally, the data repository 615 of the UE 605 may be communicatively coupled with the data repository 615 of the RAN 610 so that the respective data repositories of the UE and the RAN may share collected data.
[0177] Another such element may be a training data selection / filtering functional block 620. The training data selection / filtering functional block 620 may be configured to generate training, validation, and testing datasets for model training. Training data may be extracted from the data repository 615. Data may be selected / filtered based on the specific AI / ML model to be trained. Data may optionally be transformed / augmented / pre-processed (e.g., normalized) before being loaded into datasets. The training data selection / filtering functional block 620 may label data in datasets for supervised learning. The produced datasets may then be fed into the model training functional block 625.
[0178] As noted above, another such element may be the model training functional block 625. This functional block may be responsible for training and updating (re-training) AEML models. The selected model may be trained using the fed-in datasets (including training, validation, and testing) from the training data selection / filtering functional block. The model training functional block 625 may produce trained and tested AI / ML models that are ready for deployment. The produced, trained, and tested models can be stored in a model repository 635.
[0179] The model repository 635 may be responsible for the storage and exposure of AI / ML models (both trained and untrained). Trained / updated model(s) may be stored in the model repository 635. Model and model parameters may be discovered and requested by other functional blocks (e.g., the training data selection / filtering functional block 620 and / or the model training functional block 625). In some examples, the UE 605 may discover and request AI / ML models from the model repository 635 of the RAN 610. Similarly, the RAN 610 may be able to discover and / or request AI / ML models from the modelAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1repository 635 of the UE 605. In some examples, the RAN 610 may configure models and / or model parameters in the model repository 635 of the UE 605.
[0180] Another such element may be a model management functional block 640. The model management functional block 640 may be responsible for the management of the AI / ML model produced by the model training functional block 625. Such management functions may include the deployment of a trained model, monitoring model performance, etc. In model deployment, the model management functional block 640 may allocate and schedule hardware and / or software resources for inference based on received trained and tested models. As used herein, “inference” refers to the process of using trained AI / ML model(s) to generate data analytics, actions, policies, etc., based on input inference data. In performance monitoring, based on wireless performance KPIs and model performance metrics, the model management functional block 640 may decide to terminate the running model, start model re-training, select another model, etc. For example, the model management functional block 640 of the RAN 610 may be able to configure model management policies in the UE 605, as shown.
[0181] Another such element may be an inference data selection / filtering element 650. The inference data selection / filtering element 650 may be responsible for generating datasets for model inference at the inference functional block 645, as described below. Specifically, inference data may be extracted from the data repository 615. The inference data selection / filtering element 650 may select and / or filter the data based on the deployed AI / ML model. Data may be transformed / augmented / pre-processed following the same transformation / augmentation / pre-processing as those in training data selection / filtering, as described with respect to the training data selection / filtering functional block 620. The produced inference dataset may be fed into the inference functional block 645.
[0182] Another such element may be the inference functional block 645. The inference functional block 645 may be responsible for executing inference as described above. Specifically, the inference functional block 645 may consume the inference dataset provided by the inference data selection / filtering element 650 and generate one or more outcomes. Such outcomes may include dataAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1analytics, actions, policies, etc. The outcome(s) may be provided to the performance measurement functional block 630.
[0183] The performance measurement functional block 630 may be configured to measure model performance metrics (e.g., accuracy, model bias, run-time latency, etc.) of deployed and executing models based on the inference outcome(s) for monitoring purposes. Model performance data may be stored in the data repository 615.
[0184] FIG. 7 depicts example RAN split architecture aspects. FIG. 7 shows an example network deployment including an example next-generation fronthaul (NGF) deployment 700a where a UE 702 is connected to an RU 730 (also referred to as a “remote radio unit 730”, “a remote radio head 730”, or “RRH 730”) via an air interface, the RU 730 is connected to a Digital Unit (DU) 731 via a NGF interface (NGFI)-I, the DU 731 is connected to a Central Unit (CU) 732 via an NGFI-II, and the CU 732 is connected to a core network (CN) 742 via a backhaul interface. In 3 GPP NG-RAN implementations (see, e.g., [TS38401]), the DU 731 may be a distributed unit (the term “DU” may refer to a digital unit and / or a distributed unit unless the context dictates otherwise). UEs 702 may be the same or similar to UEs 202 and / or any other UE or user / client device discussed herein.
[0185] In some implementations, the NGF deployment 700a may be arranged in a distributed RAN (D-RAN) architecture where the CU 732, DU 731, and RU 730 reside at a cell site, and the CN 742 is located at a centralized site.Alternatively, the NGF deployment 700a may be arranged in a centralized RAN (C-RAN) architecture with centralized processing of one or more baseband units (BBUs) at the centralized site. In C-RAN architectures, the radio components are split into discrete components, which can be located in different locations. In one example C-RAN implementation, only the RU 730 is disposed at the cell site, and the DU 731, the CU 732, and the CN 742 are centralized or disposed at a central location. In another example C-RAN implementation, the RU 730 and the DU 731 are located at the cell site, and the CU 732 and the CN 742 are at the centralized site. In another example of C-RAN implementation, only the RU 730 is disposed at the cell site, the DU 731 and the CU 732 are located at a RAN hub site, and the CN 742 is at the centralized site.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0186] The CU 732 is a central controller that can serve or otherwise connect to one or multiple DUs 731 and / or multiple RUs 730. The CU 732 is a network (logical) node hosting higher / upper layers of a network protocol functional split. For example, in the 3GPP NG-RAN and / or 0-RAN architectures, a CU 732 hosts the radio resource control (RRC), Service Data Adaptation Protocol (SDAP), and Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) layers of a nextgeneration NodeB (gNB), or hosts the RRC and PDCP protocol layers when included in or operating as an E-UTRA-NR gNB (en-gNB). The SDAP sublayer performs mapping between quality of service flows and data radio bearers (DRBs) and marking quality of service flow IDs (QFI) in both DL and UL packets. The PDCP sublayer performs transfer of user plane or control plane data; maintains PDCP sequence numbers (SNs); header compression and decompression using the Robust Header Compression (ROHC) and / or Ethernet Header Compression (EHC) protocols; ciphering and deciphering; integrity protection and integrity verification; provides timer-based SDU discard; routing for split bearers; duplication and duplicate discarding; reordering and in-order delivery; and / or out-of-order delivery. In various implementations, a CU 732 terminates respective Fl interfaces connected with corresponding DUs 731 (see, e.g., [TS38401]).
[0187] A CU 732 may include a CU-control plane (CP) entity (referred to herein as “CU-CP 732”) and a CU-user plane (UP) entity (referred to herein as “CU-UP 732”). The CU-CP 732 is a logical node hosting the RRC layer and the control plane part of the PDCP protocol layer of the CU 732 (e.g., a gNB-CU for an en-gNB or a gNB). The CU-CP 732 terminates an El interface connected with the CU-UP, and the Fl-C interface is connected with a DU 731. The CU-UP 732 is a logical node hosting the user plane part of the PDCP protocol layer (e.g., for a gNB-CU 732 of an en-gNB), and the user plane part of the PDCP protocol layer and the SDAP protocol layer (e.g., for the gNB-CU 732 of a gNB). The CU-UP 732 terminates the El interface connected with the CU-CP 732 and the Fl -U interface connected with a DU 731.
[0188] The DU 731 controls radio resources, such as time and frequency bands, locally in real time and allocates resources to one or more UEs. The DUs 731 are network (logical) nodes hosting middle and / or lower layers of theAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1network protocol functional split. For example, in the 3GPP NG-RAN and / or O-RAN architectures, a DU 731 hosts the radio link control (RLC) medium access control (MAC), and high-physical (PHY) layers of the gNB or en-gNB, and its operation is at least partly controlled by the CU 732. The RLC sublayer operates in one or more of the Transparent Mode (TM), Unacknowledged Mode (UM), and Acknowledged Mode (AM). The RLC sublayer performs transfer of upperlayer PDUs; sequence numbering independent of the one in PDCP (UM and AM); error correction through ARQ (AM only); segmentation (AM and UM) and re-segmentation (AM only) of RLC SDUs; reassembly of SDUs (AM and UM); duplicate detection (AM only); RLC SDU discard (AM and UM); RLC reestablishment; and / or protocol error detection (AM only). The MAC sublayer performs mapping between logical channels and transport channels; multiplexing / demultiplexing of MAC SDUs belonging to one or different logical channels into / from transport blocks (TB) delivered to / from the physical layer on transport channels; scheduling information reporting; error correction through HARQ (one HARQ entity per cell in case of CA); priority handling between UEs by means of dynamic scheduling; priority handling between logical channels of one UE by means of logical channel prioritization; priority handling between overlapping resources of one UE; and / or padding. In some implementations, a DU 731 can host a Backhaul Adaptation Protocol (BAP) layer (see e.g., 3GPP TS 38.340 V16.5.0 (2021-07-07)) and / or an Fl application protocol (F1AP) (see e.g., 3GPP TS 38.470 V16.5.0 (2021-07-01)), such as when the DU 731 is operating as an Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) node. One DU 731 supports one or multiple cells, and one cell is supported by only one DU 731. A DU 731 terminates the F 1 interface connected with a CU 732.Additionally or alternatively, the DU 731 may be connected to one or more RRHs / RUs 730.
[0189] The RU 730 is a transmission / reception point (TRP) or other physical node that handles radio frequency (RF) processing functions. The RU 730 is a network (logical) node hosting lower layers based on a lower-layer functional split. For example, in 3GPP NG-RAN and / or 0-RAN architectures, the RU 730 hosts low-PHY layer functions and RF processing of the radio interface based on a lower-layer functional split. The RU 730 may be similar to 3GPP’s transmission / reception point (TRP) or RRH, but specifically includes the Low-AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1PHY layer. Examples of low-PHY functions include fast Fouriertransform (FFT), inverse FFT (IFFT), physical random access channel (PRACH) extraction, and the like.
[0190] Each of the CUs 732, DUs 731, and RUs 730 is connected through respective links, which may be any suitable wireless and / or wired links (e.g., fiber, copper, and the like). In some implementations, various combinations of the CU 732, DU 731, and RU 730 may correspond to one or more of the ANs 208 of FIG. 2. Additional aspects of CUs 732, DUs 731, and RUs 730 are discussed in [O-RAN], [TS38401], [TS38410], and [TS38300], the contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
[0191] In some implementations, a fronthaul gateway function (FHGW) may be disposed between the DU 731 and the RU / RRU 730 (not shown by FIG. 7), where the interface between the DU 731 and the FHGW is an Open Fronthaul (e.g., Option 7-2x) interface, the interface between the FHGW function and the RU / RRU 730 is an Open Fronthaul (e.g., Option 7-2x) interface or any other suitable interface (e.g., option 7, option 8, or the like) including those that do not support Open Fronthaul (e.g., Option 7-2x). The FHGW may be packaged with one or more other functions (e.g., Ethernet switching and / or the like) in a physical device or appliance. In some implementations, a RAN controller may be communicatively coupled with the CU 732 and / or the DU 731.
[0192] NGFI (also referred to as “xHaul” or the like) is a two-level fronthaul architecture that separates the traditional RRU 730 to BBU connectivity in the C-RAN architecture into two levels, namely levels I and II. Level I connects the RU 730 via the NGFI-I to the DU 731, and level II connects the DU 731 via the NGFI-II to the CU 732, as shown by deployment 700a in FIG. 7. The NGFI-I and NGFI-II connections may be wired connections or wireless connections, which may utilize any suitable RAT such as any of those discussed herein. The purpose of the two-level architecture is to distribute (split) the RAN node protocol functions between CU 732 and DU 731 such that latencies are relaxed, giving more deployment flexibility. In general, the NGFI-I interfaces with the lower layers of the function split, which have stringent delay and data rate requirements. In contrast, NGFI-II interfaces with higher layers of the function split relative to the layers of the NGFI-I, relaxing the requirements for theAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1fronthaul link. Examples of the NGFI fronthaul interfaces and functional split architectures include O-RAN 7.2x fronthaul (see e.g., [0-RAN.WG9.XPSAAS] and [O-RAN-WG4.CUS.0]), Enhanced Common Radio Interface (CPRI) based C-RAN fronthaul (see e.g., Common Public Radio Interface: eCPRI Interface Specification, eCPRI Specification v2.0 (2019-05-10), Common Public Radio Interface: Requirements for the eCPRI Transport Network, eCPRI Transport Network vl.2 (2018-06-25), and [O-RAN-WG4.CUS.0]), Radio over Ethernet (RoE) based C-RAN fronthaul (see, e.g., IEEE Standard for Radio over Ethernet Encapsulations and Mappings, IEEE Standards Association, IEEE 1914.3-2018 (Oct. 5, 2018) (“[IEEE1914.3]”)), and / or the like. Additional aspects of NGFI are also discussed in [O-RAN. WG9.XPSAAS], [O-RAN-WG4.CUS.0], IEEE Standard for Packet-based Fronthaul Transport Networks, IEEE Standards Association, IEEE 1914.1-2019 (Apr. 21, 2020) (“[IEEE1914.1]”), [IEEE1914.3], and Nasrallah et al., Ultra-Low Latency (ULL) Networks: A Comprehensive Survey Covering the IEEE TSN Standard and Related ULL Research, arXiv:1803.07673vl [cs.NI] (Mar. 20, 2018) (“[Nasrallah]”), the contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
[0193] In one example, the deployment 700a may implement a low-level split (LLS) (also referred to as a “Lower Layer Functional Split 7-2x” or “Split Option 7-2x”) that runs between the RU 730 (e.g., an O-RU in O-RAN architectures) and the DU 731 (e.g., an O-DU in O-RAN architectures) (see, e.g., [O-RAN.WG7.IPC-HRD-Opt7-2], [O-RAN. WG7.0MAC-HRD], [O-RAN.WG7.OMC-HRD-Opt7-2], [O-RAN.WG7.OMC-HRD-Opt7-2]). In this example implementation, the NGFI-I is the Open Fronthaul interface described in the O-RAN Open Fronthaul Specification (see, e.g., [O-RAN-WG4.CUS.0]). Other LLS options may be used, such as the relevant interfaces described in other standards or specifications such as, for example, the 3GPP NG-RAN functional split (see e.g., [TS38401] and 3GPP TR 38.801 vl4.0.0 (2017-04-03)), the Small Cell Forum for Split Option 6 (see e.g., 5G small cell architecture and product definitions: Configurations and Specifications for companies deploying small cells 2020-2025, Small Cell Forum, document 238.10.01 (Jul. 5, 2020) (“[SCF238]”), 5GNRFR1 Reference Design: The case for a common, modular architecture for 5G NR FR1 small cell distributed radio units, Small Cell Forum, document 251.10.01 (Dec. 15, 2021) (“[SCF251]”), and [O-AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1RAN.WG7.IPC-HRD-Opt6]), the contents of each of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, and / or in O-RAN white-box hardware Split Option 8 (e.g., [O-RAN.WG7.IPC-HRD-Opt8]).
[0194] Additionally or alternatively, the CUs 732, DUs 731, and / or RUs 730 may be IAB nodes. IAB enables wireless relaying in an NG-RAN where a relaying node (referred to as an “lAB-node”) supports access and backhauling via 3GPP 5G / new radio (NR) links / interfaces. The terminating node of NR backhauling on the network side is referred to as an “IAB-donor,” which represents a RAN node (e.g., a gNB) with additional functionality to support IAB. Backhauling can occur via a single or multiple hops. All IAB nodes that are connected to an IAB-donor via one or multiple hops form a directed acyclic graph (DAG) topology with the IAB-donor as its root. The IAB-donor performs centralized resource, topology, and route management for the IAB topology. The IAB architecture is shown and described in [TS38300],
[0195] Although the NGF deployment 700a shows the CU 732, DU 731, RRH 730, and CN 742 as separate entities, in other implementations, some or all of these network nodes can be bundled, combined, or otherwise integrated into a single device or element, including collapsing some internal interfaces (e.g., Fl-C, Fl-U, El, E2, and the like). At least the following implementations are possible: (i) integrating the CU 732 and the DU 731 (e.g., a CU-DU), which is connected to the RRH 730 via the NGFI-I; (ii) integrating the DU 731 and the RRH 730 (e.g., a DU-RRH), which is connected to the CU 732 via NGFI-II; (iii) integrating a RAN controller and the CU 732, which is connected to the DU 731 via NGFI-II; (iv) integrating the CU 732, the DU 731, and the RRH 730, which is connected to the CN 742 via a backhaul interface; and (v) integrating the network controller (or intelligent controller), the CU 732, the DU 731, and the RRH 730. Any of the aforementioned example implementations involving the CU 732 may also include integrating the CU-CP and CU-UP.
[0196] FIG. 7 also shows an example RAN disaggregation deployment 700b (also referred to as “disaggregated RAN 700b”) where the UE 702 is connected to the RRH 730, and the RRH 730 is communicatively coupled with one or more of the RAN functions (RANFs) 1-N (where N is a number). The RANFs 1-N are disaggregated and distributed geographically across several componentAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1segments and network nodes. In some implementations, each RANF 1-N is a software (SW) element executed on a physical compute node, and the RRH 730 includes radio-frequency (RF) circuitry (e.g., an RF propagation module for a particular RAT and / or the like). In this example, RANF 1 is operated on a physical compute node co-located with the RRH 730, and the other RANFs are located farther from the RRH 730. Additionally, in this example, CN 742 is also disaggregated into CN NFs 1-x (where x is a number) in the same or similar manner as the RANFs 1-N. However, in other implementations, the CN 742 is not disaggregated.
[0197] Network disaggregation (or disaggregated networking) involves separating networking equipment into functional components and allowing each component to be deployed individually. This may encompass separating SW elements (e.g., NFs) from specific HW elements and / or using APIs to enable software-defined networking (SDN) and / or NF virtualization (NFV). RAN disaggregation involves network disaggregation and the virtualization of various RANFs (e.g., RANFs 1-N in FIG. 7). The RANFs 1-N can be deployed across different physical sites and topologies in an RAN deployment, depending on the use case. This enables RANF distribution and deployment across different geographic areas, allowing RANFs to be broken out to support various use cases (e.g., low-latency use cases) and to support flexible RAN implementations. Disaggregation provides a common, uniform RAN platform that can assume a distinct profile based on its deployment location. This enables fewer fixed-function devices and a lower total cost of ownership compared to existing RAN architectures. Example RAN disaggregation frameworks include the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) OpenRAN, Cisco Open vRAN, [O-RAN], Open Optical & Packet Transport (OOPT), Reconfigurable Optical Add Drop Multiplexer (RO ADM), and / or the like.
[0198] In a first example implementation, the RANFs 1-N disaggregate RAN HW and SW using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) HW and open interfaces (e.g., NGFI-I, NGFI-II, and the like). In this example implementation, each RANF 1-N may be a virtual BBU or vRAN controller operating on COTS compute infrastructure with HW acceleration for BBU / vRANFs.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0199] In a second example implementation, the RANFs 1-N disaggregate layers of one or more RAT protocol stacks. As an example of this implementation, RANF 1 is a DU 731 operating on the first COTS compute infrastructure with HW acceleration for BBU / vRANFs, and RANF 2 is a virtual CU 732 operating on the second COTS compute infrastructure.
[0200] In a third example implementation, the RANFs 1-N disaggregate control plane and user plane functions. As an example of this implementation, the RANF l is a DU 731 operating on COTS compute infrastructure with HW acceleration for BBU / vRANFs, RANF 2 is a virtual CU-CP 732 operating on COTS compute infrastructure, and a third RANF (e.g., RANF 3 (not shown by FIG. 7)) is a virtual CU-UP 732 operating on the same or different COTS compute infrastructure as the virtual CU-CP 732. Additionally or alternatively, in this implementation, one or more CN NFs 1-x may be CN-UP functions, and one or more other CN NFs 1-x may be CN-CP functions.
[0201] In a fourth example implementation, the RANFs 1-N disaggregate layers of an [IEEE802] RAT. As an example of this implementation, the RRH 730 implements a WiFi PHY layer, RANF 1 implements a WiFi MAC sublayer, RANF 1 implements a WiFi logical link control (LLC) sublayer, RANF 2 implements one or more WiFi upper layer protocols (e.g., network layer, transport layer, session layer, presentation layer, and / or application layer), and so forth.
[0202] In a fifth example implementation, the RANFs 1-N disaggregate different O-RAN RANFs, including E2SMs. As an example of this implementation, RANF 1 implements the near-RT RIC, RANF 2 implements the E2SM-KPM, RANF 3 implements the E2SM-CCC, RANF 4 implements the E2SM RAN control, RANF 5 implements the E2SM-NI, RANF 6 implements functions for providing Al services, and so forth.
[0203] In any of the implementations discussed herein, the lower layers of the RAN protocol stack can be characterized by real-time (RT) functions and relatively complex signal processing algorithms, and the higher layers of the RAN protocol stack can be characterized by non-RT functions. In these implementations, the RT functions and signal processing algorithms can be implemented in DUs 731 and / or RRHs 730, either using purpose-built networkAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1elements or COTS hardware augmented with purpose-built hardware accelerators.
[0204] FIG. 7 also shows various functional split options 700c for both DL and UL directions. The traditional RAN is an integrated network architecture based on a distributed RAN (D-RAN) model, in which D-RAN aggregates all RANFs into a few network elements. As previously alluded to, the disaggregated RAN architecture offers flexible function split options to overcome the various drawbacks of the D-RAN model. The disaggregated RAN breaks the integrated network system into several functional components that can be relocated individually as needed without hindering their ability to work together to provide holistic network services. The split options 700c are mostly split between the CU 732 and the DU 731, but can also include a split among the CU 732, DU 731, and RU 730. For each option 700c, protocol entities on the left side of the figure are included in the RANF implementing the CU 732, and the protocol entities on the right side of the figure are included in the RANF implementing the DU 731. For example, the Option 2 function split includes splitting non-RT processing (e.g., RRC and PDCP layers) from RT processing (e.g., RLC, MAC, and PHY layers), where the RANF implementing the CU 732 performs network functions of the RRC and PDCP layers, and the RANF implementing the DU 731 performs the baseband processing functions of the RLC (including high-RLC and low-RLC), MAC (including high-MAC and low-MAC), and PHY layers. In some implementations, the PHY layer is further split between the DU 731 and the RU 730, with the RANF in the DU 731 performing the high-PHY layer functions, and the RU 730 handling the low-PHY layer functions. In some implementations, the Low-PHY entity may be operated by the RU 730 regardless of the selected functional split option. Under the Option 2 split, the RANF implementing the CU 732 can connect to multiple DUs 731 (e.g., a centralized CU 732), eliminating the need to change the RRC and PDCP anchors during handovers across DUs 731 and allowing the centralized CU 732 to pool resources across several DUs 731. In this way, the Option 2 function split can improve resource efficiency. The specific function split option used may vary depending on service requirements and network deployment scenarios, and may be implementation-specific. It should also be noted that in some implementations, all of the function split options can be selected where eachAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1protocol stack entity is operated by a respective RANF (e.g., a first RANF operates the RRC layer, a second RANF operates the PDCP layer, a third RANF operates the high-RLC layer, and so forth until an eighth RANF operates the low-PHY layer). Other split options are possible, such as those discussed in [O-RAN.WG7.IPC-HRD-Opt6], [O-RAN.WG7.IPC-HRD-Opt7-2], [O-RAN.WG7.IPC-HRD-Opt8], [0-RAN.WG7.0MAC-HRD], and [O-RAN. WG7. OMC-HRD-Opt7-2] .
[0205] For one or more embodiments, at least one of the components outlined in one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to perform one or more operations, techniques, processes, and / or methods as discussed herein (including the examples listed in the examples sections below). For example, baseband circuitry associated with one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to operate in accordance with one or more of the examples set forth below. For another example, circuitry associated with a UE, base station, satellite, network element, etc., as described above in connection with one or more of the preceding figures, may be configured to operate in accordance with one or more of the examples set forth below in the example section.
[0206] The term “application” may refer to a complete, deployable package or environment that performs a specific function in an operational environment. The term “AI / ML application,” or a similar term, may refer to an application that incorporates artificial intelligence (Al) and / or machine learning (ML) models, along with application-level descriptions. In some embodiments, an AI / ML application may be used to configure or implement one or more of the disclosed aspects.
[0207] The term “machine learning” or “ML” refers to the use of computer systems implementing algorithms and / or statistical models to perform a specific task(s) without using explicit instructions but instead relying on patterns and inferences. ML algorithms build or estimate mathematical models (referred to as “ML models” or the like) based on sample data (referred to as “training data,” “model training information,” or the like) to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to perform such tasks. Generally, an ML algorithm is a computer program that learns from experience regarding a specific task and a corresponding performance measure. An ML model, on the otherAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1hand, may be any object or data structure created after an ML algorithm is trained on one or more training datasets. After training, an ML model may be used to make predictions on new datasets. Although the term “ML algorithm” refers to concepts different from the term “ML model,” these terms, as discussed herein, may be used interchangeably.
[0208] The term “machine learning model,” “ML model,” or the like may also refer to ML methods and concepts used by an ML-assisted solution. An “ML-assisted solution” addresses a specific use case by using ML algorithms during operation. ML models include supervised learning (e.g., linear regression, k-nearest neighbor (KNN), decision tree algorithms, support machine vectors, Bayesian algorithm, ensemble algorithms, etc.), unsupervised learning (e.g., K-means clustering, principal component analysis (PCA), etc.), reinforcement learning (e.g., Q-leaming, multi-armed bandit learning, deep RL, etc.), neural networks, and the like. Depending on the implementation, a specific ML model may comprise many sub-models, and the model may train all of them simultaneously. Separately trained ML models can also be chained together in an ML pipeline during inference. An “ML pipeline” is a set of functionalities, functions, or functional entities specific to an ML-assisted solution; an ML pipeline may include one or several data sources in a data pipeline, a model training pipeline, a model evaluation pipeline, and an actor. The “actor” is an entity that hosts an ML-assisted solution that uses the ML model's inference output. The term “ML training host” refers to an entity, such as a network function, that hosts the model training. The term “ML inference host” refers to an entity, such as a network function, that hosts the model during inference (including both model execution and any online learning, if applicable). The ML host informs the actor of the ML algorithm's output, and the actor decides on an action (an “action” is performed by an actor as a result of the ML-assisted solution's output). The term “model inference information” refers to information used as an input to the ML model for determining inference(s); the data used to train an ML model and the data used to determine inferences may overlap, however, “training data” and “inference data” refer to different concepts.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0209] The disclosed techniques include configurations for RA-RNTI determination for additional PRACH resources. The following discussion may be applicable to any type of communication device (including UEs or base stations), such as the devices discussed in connection with FIGS. 1 A-10.
[0210] Network energy savings are of great importance for environmental sustainability, to reduce environmental impact (greenhouse gas emissions), and to achieve operational cost savings. As 5G becomes pervasive across industries and geographic areas, handling more advanced services and applications requiring very high data rates (e.g., XR), networks are becoming denser, using more antennas, larger bandwidths, and more frequency bands. The environmental impact of 5G can be controlled, and novel solutions to improve network energy savings can be developed.
[0211] In some aspects, a 4-step procedure can be used, as illustrated in FIG.8. FIG. 8 is a flowchart of a 4-step RACH procedure 800, in accordance with some aspects.
[0212] At operation 801, a UE transmits a physical random access channel (PRACH) in the uplink in the first step, allowing the gNB to estimate the delay between the gNB and the UE for subsequent UL timing adjustment.
[0213] At operation 802, the gNB feeds back the random access response (RAR), which carries timing advance (TA) command information and uplink grant for the uplink transmission in the third step.
[0214] At operation 804, the UE sends a Msg3 on a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) based on the uplink grant in the RAR after the uplink timing is adjusted.
[0215] At operation 806, the gNB sends a Msg4 for contention resolution.
[0216] As defined in the 4-step RACH, the UE monitors the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) with Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) scrambled by an RA-RNTI in the second step for RAR reception. The determination of RA-RNTI can be performed in accordance with Clause 5.1.3 of 3GPP Technical Specification (TS) 38.321.
[0217] When cells in a paging tracking area send paging to a large number of UEs, the network should anticipate that the UE will transmit on the physical random access channel (PRACH) shortly after paging. For scenarios where theAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1gNB expects high PRACH transmission opportunities, it may be possible to configure additional PRACH resources to handle the increased demand. To achieve a significant energy-saving gain in the network, it is envisioned that a bursty pattern may be designed for the superposition of existing and additional PRACH resources.
[0218] When additional PRACH resources and existing PRACH resources are multiplexed in a frequency-division multiplexing (FDM) manner, separate starting frequency offset and number of FDM'ed PRACH occasions may be configured for the additional PRACH resources. In this case, ambiguity may arise in determining the RA-RNTI for RAR reception by UEs that send the PRACH preamble using additional PRACH resources. To address this issue, certain mechanisms may need to be considered when determining RA-RNTI for additional PRACH resources.
[0219] The disclosed techniques include systems and methods for determining RA-RNTI for additional PRACH resources to save network energy. In particular, the disclosed techniques include configurations for RA-RNTI determination for additional PRACH resources, PDCCH-ordered PRACH transmission for PRACH adaptation, and PRACH occasion ordering and PRACH repetitions for PRACH adaptation.
[0220] In some aspects, the random access procedure is governed by precise rules for identifying and utilizing temporary identifiers to coordinate uplink and downlink transmissions between the user equipment (UE) and the nextgeneration Node B (gNB). Specifically, the determination of the RA-RNTI is performed according to a mathematical formulation that incorporates multiple indices associated with the physical random access channel (PRACH) transmission occasion, including the index of the first orthogonal frequencydivision multiplexing (OFDM) symbol (denoted as s_id, ranging from 0 to less than 14), the index of the first slot within a system frame (denoted as t_id, ranging from 0 to less than 80, with subcarrier spacing p selected in accordance with the applicable configuration for values 0 through 3 or extended handling for higher p values such as 5 or 6), the index of the PRACH occasion in the frequency domain (denoted as f id, ranging from 0 to less than 8), and the uplinkAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1carrier identifier (ul carrier id, set to 0 for normal uplink or 1 for supplementary uplink).
[0221] This computation yields the RA-RNTI value as 1 + s_id + 14 x t_id + 14 x 80 x f id + 14 x 80 x 8 x ul_carrier_id, thereby ensuring that each distinct PRACH occasion maps uniquely to an RA-RNTI for subsequent monitoring of the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) with a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) scrambled by that identifier during the random access response (RAR) reception phase. The MAC entity initiates the random access procedure upon request from higher layers or upon detection of specific conditions, such as beam failure, RRC connection re-establishment, or a paging response, and computes the RA-RNTI immediately upon transmission of the PRACH preamble to enable timely PDCCH monitoring within the ra-ResponseWindow.
[0222] The disclosed techniques further address the MsgB-RNTI applicable to two-step random access channel (RACH) procedures through an analogous equation that extends the base RA-RNTI computation by an additional term of 14 times 80 times 8 times 2, maintaining consistency in identifier allocation across contention-based and contention-free access scenarios while supporting fallback to four-step RACH when necessary. In the context of frequencydivision multiplexed (FDM) PRACH resources, the frequency-domain indexing (f id) is inherently tied to the configured number of PRACH occasions per time instance (parameter msg 1 -FDM), which directly influences how multiple PRACH occasions are distinguished in the RA-RNTI derivation to prevent collisions or ambiguities in RAR addressing.
[0223] The MAC entity is required to monitor the PDCCH for RAR within a defined window following PRACH transmission, using the computed RA-RNTI (or MsgB-RNTI, as applicable) to descramble the CRC, and the procedure incorporates handling for Msgl repetition by associating the RA-RNTI with the last valid PRACH occasion in the configured set of occasions as specified in the physical layer procedures. These mechanisms ensure reliable resolution of random access attempts, including those triggered by paging or other higher-layer events, while supporting extensions for additional or adaptive PRACH resource configurations through modifications to the f id calculation (for instance, by offsetting the frequency index of additional resources by the msgl-AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1FDM value of existing resources or by incorporating a resource configuration identifier offset r id).
[0224] The disclosed techniques also detail the overall four-step and two-step RACH flows, including timing advance command handling in the RAR, uplink grant allocation for Msg3 on the physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), Msg3 transmission with contention resolution identity or RRC resume request, and contention resolution via Msg4, all of which rely on the RA-RNTI for synchronization and resource allocation. Furthermore, the disclosed techniques outline backoff procedures using the backoff parameter from the RAR, power ramping for preamble retransmissions, preamble selection based on SSB measurements, and random access prioritization, all of which interact with the RA-RNTI computation to optimize access latency and collision probability, particularly in high-load scenarios such as mass paging events where bursty PRACH demands necessitate supplementary resources for network energy efficiency. By maintaining strict parameter bounds and indexing rules, the MAC layer specification provides a robust foundation for unambiguous identifier determination, enabling seamless integration of proposed enhancements for additional PRACH resources without disrupting legacy UE behavior.
[0225] Pursuant to the NR physical layer procedures for control, the random access procedure encompasses comprehensive controls for PRACH transmission timing, occasion validation, synchronization signal block (SSB) to PRACH occasion mapping, and downlink control information (DCI)-triggered PRACH commands, all of which are essential for coordinating UE-initiated or network-ordered access attempts. The disclosed techniques define the valid PRACH occasions through an ordered mapping process that associates SS / PBCH block indices (derived from ssb-PositionsInBurst in system information or dedicated configurations such as ServingCellConfigCommon, SSB-MTC-AdditionalPCI, or LTM-SSB-Config) to PRACH resources in a prioritized sequence: first by increasing preamble indices within a single occasion, second by increasing frequency-domain resource indices for FDM occasions, third by increasing timedomain indices within a PRACH slot, and fourth by increasing PRACH slot indices across the association pattern period.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0226] This mapping ensures deterministic selection of the appropriate PRACH occasion for a given SSB index and preamble, with the indexing of mask values reset per mapping cycle to facilitate consistent UE behavior across repetition cycles or multiple transmissions, while the UE selects the PRACH occasion indicated by the PRACH mask index in the first available mapping cycle. For PRACH with preamble repetitions, the procedure establishes a time period commencing from frame 0 as the smallest integer multiple of association pattern periods that accommodates at least one complete set of valid occasions for every configured repetition count and SSB index, wherein subsequent sets within the period are ordered by frequency then time indices, incorporating offsets such as msgl-RepetitionTimeOffsetROGroup when provided to group occasions associated with identical SSBs and preambles.
[0227] The DCI format 1 0 (scrambled by C-RNTI or other identifiers) is utilized for PDCCH-ordered PRACH transmission, including fields for random access preamble index, SSB index, and PRACH mask index, with explicit timeline requirements (as set forth in the relevant clause governing the minimum processing delay between DCI reception and the earliest permissible PRACH transmission) ensuring compliance with UE capability and numerology. In scenarios involving multiple PRACH resource configurations, the ordering and validation rules apply to determine the earliest qualifying occasion that satisfies the timeline, ensuring that the UE transmits on the appropriate resource set (existing or supplementary) based on preamble validity and configurationspecific mappings.
[0228] The physical layer control procedures further specify the handling of frequency-multiplexed occasions through parameters such as the number of FDM occasions and starting frequency offsets, which directly inform the frequency-domain indexing used in higher-layer identifier calculations.Additionally, the disclosed techniques address PRACH adaptation mechanisms, including dynamic enablement or disablement via DCI indications, and support separate or joint application of ordering rules across distinct PRACH configurations to accommodate bursty traffic patterns or energy-saving adaptations without introducing mapping ambiguities. These controls collectively guarantee that PRACH transmissions align with SSB coverage,AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1maintain required timing relationships, and support repetition for enhanced reliability, while providing the procedural hooks necessary for extensions involving additional PRACH resources multiplexed in frequency with legacy configurations.
[0229] In the NR physical channels and modulation specification, the physical random access channel (PRACH) is defined with precise resource mapping rules in both time and frequency domains, including the configuration parameters that govern occasion placement and indexing critical to identifier computation and transmission waveform generation. The PRACH preamble formats (long and short sequences), sequence generation using Zadoff-Chu roots, cyclic shifts, and restricted set configurations are detailed such that each occasion is positioned according to the prach-Configurationlndex (which determines the slot and symbol-level timing), the number of frequency-multiplexed occasions (msgl-FDM, ranging up to 8), and the starting frequency resource (msgl-FrequencyStart), ensuring that the frequency-domain index (f id or n_RA) is uniquely assigned relative to the starting point and multiplexing factor within each time instance.
[0230] The subcarrier spacing configuration p (applicable values 0 through 3, or extended to 5 or 6 for higher-frequency numerologies) dictates the slot indexing for t_id derivation in the RA-RNTI formula, with the first OFDM symbol index (s_id) bounded by the PRACH duration and cyclic prefix length. OFDM baseband signal generation for PRACH incorporates cyclic shifts, root sequence selection, and restricted set configurations to minimize interference, while the overall resource grid mapping supports FDM of multiple occasions per slot or across slots within the PRACH period.
[0231] These physical-layer definitions directly underpin the frequencydomain indexing (f id) used in MAC-layer RA-RNTI and MsgB-RNTI calculations, particularly when additional PRACH resources are introduced with separate starting offsets or distinct FDM counts, requiring careful extension of the indexing to avoid overlap with existing resources. The disclosed techniques also cover the association between PRACH preambles and SSBs through the SSB-to-RO mapping parameters, ensuring that preamble indices within an occasion are partitioned according to the configured ssb-perRACH-AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1OccasionAndCB-PreamblesPerSSB value (which can vary per resource configuration).
[0232] By providing exhaustive details on PRACH occasion structure, including guard periods, frequency location offsets, and numerology-dependent slot boundaries, the physical channels specification enables precise determination of all parameters (s_id, t_id, f id, ul carrier id) entering the RA-RNTI equation and supports advanced features such as PRACH repetition groups or dynamic resource adaptation for network energy saving. The modulation and resource allocation rules further ensure compatibility with supplementary uplink carriers and inter-cell interference coordination, forming the foundational physical-layer framework upon which higher-layer random access procedures and proposed additional PRACH resource mechanisms are built.
[0233] In some aspects, the configuration of random access parameters is conveyed through dedicated information elements within system information blocks (such as SIB1) or dedicated RRC messages, including RACH-ConfigCommon and RACH-ConfigDedicated, which specify the complete set of PRACH resources for both initial access and connected-mode operations. Key parameters include the prach-Configurationlndex that defines the time-domain pattern of PRACH occasions, msgl-FDM indicating the number of frequency-multiplexed occasions per time instance, msgl -Frequency Start establishing the starting resource block offset, and ssb-PositionsInBurst that enumerates the SS / PBCH blocks transmitted in the burst for mapping purposes.
[0234] Additional fields such as ssb-perRACH-OccasionAndCB-PreamblesPerSSB control the number of preambles allocated per SSB per occasion, while msgl-RepetitionTimeOffsetROGroup and related repetition parameters govern grouped occasion handling for preamble repetitions. The RRC layer further provides mechanisms for SSB-MTC-AdditionalPCI and LTM-SSB-Config to support additional physical cell identities or layer-l / layer-2 mobility scenarios, and configurations for supplementary uplink (SUL) carriers via separate rach-ConfigCommon for SUL.
[0235] In the context of PRACH adaptation, the specification allows for dynamic indications via DCI or MAC control elements to enable or disableAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1specific resource sets, with separate configurations potentially defined for existing and additional PRACH resources to facilitate FDM multiplexing with independent starting offsets and FDM counts. The UE is required to apply these configurations consistently when selecting PRACH occasions, determining preamble indices, and computing temporary identifiers, while ensuring that any new or extended parameters for additional resources (such as distinct msgl-FDM values or resource configuration identifiers) are interpreted without conflict with legacy fields.
[0236] RRC also handles the broadcast of ssb-PositionsInBurst in ServingCellConfigCommon or other containers, enabling the ordered mapping of SSBs to PRACH occasions across multiple configurations. These exhaustive RRC signaling provisions ensure that all physical- and MAC-layer parameters referenced in RA-RNTI determination, PDCCH-ordered PRACH triggering, occasion ordering, and repetition procedures are fully configurable by the network, thereby supporting the introduction of energy-saving enhancements through supplementary PRACH resources while maintaining backward compatibility and unambiguous UE behavior.
[0237] As set forth in the NR and NG-RAN overall description (Stage 2), the random access channel procedure forms an integral part of the overall radio resource control and medium access control operations within the NG-RAN architecture, providing the initial means for UE synchronization, timing advance acquisition, and contention resolution in both idle and connected states. The stage-2 specification outlines the four-step RACH flow (PRACH preamble, RAR with RA-RNTI addressing, Msg3 on granted PUSCH, and Msg4 contention resolution) as well as the two-step variant (MsgA including PRACH and PUSCH, followed by MsgB), emphasizing the role of RA-RNTI and MsgB-RNTI in linking the uplink transmission occasion to the corresponding downlink response.
[0238] Network energy saving aspects are addressed in the broader context of gNB operation, including the anticipation of high PRACH loads following paging in tracking areas and the potential for configuring additional or adaptive PRACH resources to handle bursty demands while minimizing always-on transmissions. The disclosed techniques cross-reference the detailed proceduresAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1in MAC, physical-layer control, and RRC specifications, highlighting how PRACH resource configurations (including FDM multiplexing, SSB mapping, and repetition support) contribute to system efficiency.
[0239] The disclosed techniques further describe PDCCH-ordered RACH as a network-initiated mechanism for beam failure recovery, handover, or on-demand system information acquisition, with DCI fields enabling indication of resource availability. The overall architecture ensures that additional PRACH resources, when introduced for energy-saving purposes, integrate seamlessly into the existing RACH framework by leveraging the same identifier computation and occasion selection logic, with provisions for separate or joint handling of resource sets in frequency, time, or repetition domains.
[0240] This stage-2 overview thus provides the systemic context for the precise parameter interdependencies across layers, facilitating the specification of mechanisms that resolve RA-RNTI ambiguities arising from supplementary FDM PRACH configurations and support dynamic adaptation for improved network sustainability.
[0241] In the NR User Equipment procedures in Idle mode and in the RRC Inactive state specification, the random access procedure is triggered by paging messages received on the paging control channel (PCCH) within a tracking area, prompting the UE to initiate a PRACH transmission to re-establish connectivity or respond to system information updates. The idle-mode procedures detail cell selection, reselection, and paging-monitoring criteria, including the Srxlev and Squal evaluations that determine suitable cells for access, and explicitly link paging occasions to subsequent PRACH opportunities within the same or subsequent frames.
[0242] Upon detecting a paging record addressed to its 5G-S-TMSI or other identifier, the UE performs the random access using the configured PRACH resources, applying the RA-RNTI computation and occasion mapping rules to ensure timely RAR monitoring. The disclosed techniques further address RRC Inactive state transitions, where PRACH may be used for RNA update or data resumption, with support for configured grant-based access or DCI-triggered PRACH in applicable scenarios.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0243] Energy efficiency considerations are inherent in the discontinuous reception (DRX) and paging cycle configurations, which anticipate potential PRACH surges and may necessitate network-side adaptations, such as additional PRACH resources, to maintain low-latency responses without excessive gNB power consumption. The UE procedures require consistent application of SSB-to-PRACH mapping, preamble selection based on reference signal received power (RSRP) thresholds, and backoff handling, all of which interact with the physical- and MAC-layer identifier determinations.
[0244] By encompassing the full idle / inactive state machine, including the transition from paging reception to PRACH transmission and subsequent RRC connection establishment, the specification provides the procedural foundation for handling high-load paging scenarios through supplementary PRACH configurations, ensuring that any extensions for RA-RNTI handling or PRACH adaptation preserve the integrity of idle-mode access while optimizing overall system energy performance.
[0245] The following configurations can be used in connection with RA-RNTI determination for additional PRACH resources.
[0246] When additional PRACH resources and existing PRACH resources are multiplexed in a frequency -division multiplexing (FDM) manner, separate starting frequency offset and number of FDM'ed PRACH occasions may be configured for the additional PRACH resources. In this case, ambiguity may arise in determining the RA-RNTI for RAR reception by UEs that send the PRACH preamble using additional PRACH resources. To address this issue, certain mechanisms may need to be considered when determining the RA-RNTI for additional PRACH resources.
[0247] In some aspects, when the UE sends a PRACH preamble from the additional PRACH resource configurations, the UE monitors PDCCH with a CRC scrambled by an RA-RNTI, which is determined by the number of PRACH occasions FDM'ed in a time instance for the existing PRACH resources. In particular, the number of PRACH occasions FDM'ed in a given time instance is determined by the msgl-FDM parameter configured for the existing PRACH resources.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0248] In one option, in the equation of RA-RNTI determination for additional PRACH resources, the index of the PRACH occasion in the frequency domain (f id) can be determined as f id + NRO, where f id is the index of the PRACH occasion in the frequency domain for the additional PRACH resources, and NRO is the number of PRACH occasions that are FDM’ed in one time instance (msgl-FDM) for the existing PRACH resources.
[0249] FIG. 9 is a diagram 900 illustrating RA-RNTI determination for additional PRACH resources, in accordance with some aspects. In the example in FIG. 9, the number of FDM'ed PRACH occasions in one time instance for the existing PRACH resources at 904 and for the additional PRACH resources at 902 is 2 and 1, respectively. In this case, f id for the existing PRACH resources is 0 or 1. Further, f id for the additional PRACH resources is 2, which corresponds to the number of FDM'ed PRACH occasions in a single time instance for the existing PRACH resources.
[0250] In some aspects, separate starting frequency resources are configured for the existing PRACH resources and additional PRACH resources.
[0251] In one example, the following text in Clause 5.1.3 in TS38.321 can be updated, as follows, for the determination of RA-RNTI for additional PRACH resources.
[0252] The RA-RNTI associated with the PRACH occasion in which the Random Access Preamble is transmitted or the RA-RNTI associated with the last valid PRACH occasion in the set of PRACH occasions (as specified in TS 38.213) for Msgl repetition, is computed as: RA-RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 * t_id + 14 x 80 x f id + 14 x 80 x 8 x ul_carrier_id, where s_id is the index of the first OFDM symbol of the PRACH occasion (0 < s_id < 14), t_id is the index of the first slot of the PRACH occasion in a system frame (0 < t_id < 80), where the subcarrier spacing to determine t_id is based on the value of p specified in clause 5.3.2 in TS 38.211 for p = {0, 1, 2, 3}, and for p = {5, 6}, t_id is the index of the 120 kHz slot in a system frame that contains the PRACH occasion (0 < t_id < 80), f id is the index of the PRACH occasion in the frequency domain (0 < f id < 8), and ul carrier id is the UL carrier used for Random Access Preamble transmission (0 for NUL carrier, and 1 for SUL carrier). When Random Access Preamble is transmitted on additional PRACH resources, f id = f id’ + NRO,AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1where f id’ is the index of the PRACH occasion in the frequency domain for the additional PRACH resources, and NRO is the number of PRACH occasions that are FDM’ed in one time instance (i.e., msgl-FDM) for the existing PRACH resources.
[0253] In another example, the following text in Clause 5.1.3 of TS 38.321 can be updated as follows, to determine RA-RNTI for additional PRACH resources.
[0254] The RA-RNTI associated with the PRACH occasion in which the Random Access Preamble is transmitted or the RA-RNTI associated with the last valid PRACH occasion in the set of PRACH occasions (as specified in TS 38.213) for Msgl repetition, is computed as: RA-RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 * t_id + 14 x 80 x f id + 14 x 80 x 8 x ul_carrier_id, where s_id is the index of the first OFDM symbol of the PRACH occasion (0 < s_id < 14), t_id is the index of the first slot of the PRACH occasion in a system frame (0 < t_id < 80), where the subcarrier spacing to determine t_id is based on the value of p specified in clause 5.3.2 in TS 38.211 for p = {0, 1, 2, 3}, and for p = {5, 6}, t_id is the index of the 120 kHz slot in a system frame that contains the PRACH occasion (0 < t_id < 80), f id is the index of the PRACH occasion in the frequency domain (0 < f id < 8), and ul carrier id is the UL carrier used for Random Access Preamble transmission (0 for NUL carrier, and 1 for SUL carrier). When Random Access Preamble is transmitted on additional PRACH resources, f id is the index of the PRACH occasion in the frequency domain after the existing PRACH resources (0 < f id < 8).
[0255] In some aspects, the above configurations can also apply to the determination of MSGB-RNTI for 2-step RACH when additional PRACH resources are used for PRACH transmission. In particular, MSGB-RNTI can be determined based on the number of PRACH occasions FDM'ed in a single time instance for the existing PRACH resources.
[0256] In one example, the following text in Clause 5.1.3 of TS 38.321 can be updated as follows, for the determination of the MSGB-RNTI for additional PRACH resources.
[0257] The MSGB-RNTI associated with the PRACH occasion in which the Random Access Preamble is transmitted is computed as: MSGB-RNTI = 1 +AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1s_id + 14 x t_id + 14 x 80 x f_id + 14 x 80 x 8 x ul_carrier_id + 14 x 80 x 8 x 2, where s_id is the index of the first OFDM symbol of the PRACH occasion (0 < s_id < 14), t_id is the index of the first slot of the PRACH occasion in a system frame (0 < t_id < 80), where the subcarrier spacing to determine t_id is based on the value of p specified in clause 5.3.2 in TS 38.211 for p = {0, 1, 2, 3}, and for p = {5, 6}, t_id is the index of the 120 kHz slot in a system frame that contains the PRACH occasion (0 < t_id < 80), f id is the index of the PRACH occasion in the frequency domain (0 < f id < 8), and ul carrier id is the UL carrier used for Random Access Preamble transmission (0 for NUL carrier, and 1 for SUL carrier). When Random Access Preamble is transmitted on additional PRACH resources, f id = f id’ + NRO, where f id’ is the index of the PRACH occasion in the frequency domain for the additional PRACH resources, and NRO is the number of PRACH occasions that are FDM'ed in one time instance (i.e., msgl-FDM) for the existing PRACH resources.
[0258] In some cases, when the UE sends a PRACH preamble from an additional PRACH resource configuration, the UE monitors PDCCH with a CRC scrambled by a RA-RNTI with a fixed offset relative to the existing RA-RNTI.
[0259] In some aspects, an offset may be added to the RA-RNTI determination for additional PRACH resources. The offset may be determined as a function of PRACH resource configuration ID. For additional PRACH resources, the PRACH resource configuration ID is 1; for existing PRACH resources, it is 0.
[0260] In some aspects, PRACH adaptation may not be applied to the 2-step RACH procedure.
[0261] In some aspects, the following text in Clause 5.1.3 of TS 38.321 can be updated as follows for the determination of RA-RNTI for additional PRACH resources.
[0262] The RA-RNTI associated with the PRACH occasion in which the Random Access Preamble is transmitted or the RA-RNTI associated with the last valid PRACH occasion in the set of PRACH occasions (as specified in TS 38.213) for Msgl repetition, is computed as: RA-RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 x t_id + 14 x 80 x f id + 14 x 80 x 8 x ul_carrier_id + 14 x 80 x 8 x 2 x r id, where s_idAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1is the index of the first OFDM symbol of the PRACH occasion (0 < s_id < 14), t_id is the index of the first slot of the PRACH occasion in a system frame (0 < t_id < 80), where the subcarrier spacing to determine t_id is based on the value of p specified in clause 5.3.2 in TS 38.211 for p = {0, 1, 2, 3}, and for p = {5, 6}, t_id is the index of the 120 kHz slot in a system frame that contains the PRACH occasion (0 < t_id < 80), f id is the index of the PRACH occasion in the frequency domain (0 < f id < 8), and ul carrier id is the UL carrier used for Random Access Preamble transmission (0 for NUL carrier, and 1 for SUL carrier), and r id is the index of PRACH resource configuration (e.g., 0 for existing PRACH resource configuration and 1 for additional PRACH resource configuration).
[0263] The following configurations relate to PDCCH-ordered PRACH transmission for PRACH adaptation.
[0264] In some aspects, in the DCI format 1 0 with C-RNTI for PDCCH-ordered PRACH transmission, one field is used to indicate whether the additional PRACH resource(s) are available for the triggered PRACH. For instance, bit “0” may be used to indicate that the additional PRACH resource is not available for the triggered PRACH transmission, while bit “1” may be used to indicate that the additional PRACH resources and the existing PRACH resources are available for the triggered PRACH transmission.
[0265] In some aspects, when the field in the DCI format for PDCCH-ordered PRACH transmission indicates that the additional PRACH resources are available for PRACH transmission, and if the value of the random access preamble index field is not zero, the UE determines the PRACH preamble index that is a valid PRACH preamble index based on either existing PRACH resource configurations or additional PRACH resource configurations. If the UE determines that the PRACH preamble index is valid in either the existing PRACH resource configurations or the additional PRACH resource configurations, the UE transmits the PRACH using the indicated PRACH index in either the existing PRACH resources or the additional PRACH resources.
[0266] Further, if the UE determines that the PRACH preamble index is not a valid PRACH preamble index based on one of the existing or additional PRACHAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1resource configurations, the UE does not transmit the PRACH in one of the existing or additional PRACH resources.
[0267] In one example, assuming 2 SSBs are associated with 1 PRACH occasion for the existing PRACH resource configurations, and 4 SSBs are associated with 1 PRACH occasion for the additional PRACH resource configurations, the total number of PRACH preambles in a PRACH occasion is 64. Based on the configurations, the PRACH preamble indexes associated with SSB# 0 are 0 to 31 for the existing PRACH resource configurations and 0 to 15 for the additional PRACH resource configurations.
[0268] In the DCI format for PDCCH-ordered PRACH transmission, if the indicated SSB index is 0 and the indicated PRACH preamble index is 18, the UE transmits the PRACH using preamble index 18 in accordance with the existing PRACH resource configurations, and does not transmit the PRACH in the additional PRACH resources.
[0269] If the indicated SSB index is 0 and the indicated PRACH preamble index is 10, the UE may transmit the PRACH using preamble index 10 in accordance with either the existing or the additional PRACH resource configurations.
[0270] In some cases, when the field in the DCI format for PDCCH-ordered PRACH transmission indicates that additional PRACH resources are available, the UE expects the indicated PRACH preamble index to be valid for both existing and additional PRACH resources.
[0271] In some aspects, when the field in the DCI format for PDCCH-ordered PRACH transmission indicates that the additional PRACH resources are available for PRACH transmission, and if the value of the random access preamble index field is not zero, if the UE determines that the PRACH preamble index is valid in either the existing PRACH resource configurations or the additional PRACH resource configurations, the UE transmits the PRACH using the indicated PRACH index in the earlier PRACH occasion from the existing PRACH resources and the additional PRACH resources that satisfies the timeline requirement as defined in Clause 8.1 in TS 38.213.
[0272] The following configurations relate to PRACH occasion ordering and PRACH repetitions for PRACH adaptation.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0273] In some aspects, PRACH occasion ordering is separately determined for the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resources for PRACH adaptation. In particular, the following text in the specification can be separately applied to the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resources.
[0274] SS / PBCH block indexes provided by ssb-PositionsInBurst in SIB1 or in ServingCellConfigCommon or in SSB-MTC-AdditionalPCI or in LTM-SSB-Config are mapped to valid PRACH occasions in the following order, where the parameters are described in TS 38.211.
[0275] (a) First, in increasing order of preamble indexes within a single PRACH occasion.
[0276] (b) Second, in increasing order of frequency resource indexes for frequency -multiplexed PRACH occasions.
[0277] (c) Third, in increasing order of time resource indexes for time-multiplexed PRACH occasions within a PRACH slot.
[0278] (d) Fourth, in increasing order of indexes for PRACH slots.
[0279] In some aspects, the PRACH occasions are mapped consecutively per corresponding SS / PBCH block index. The indexing of the PRACH occasion indicated by the mask index value is reset per mapping cycle of consecutive PRACH occasions per SS / PBCH block index. In some aspects, the UE selects, for a PRACH transmission, the PRACH occasion corresponding to the PRACH mask index value for the indicated SS / PBCH block index in the first available mapping cycle.
[0280] For the indicated preamble index, the ordering of the PRACH occasions can be as follows:
[0281] (a) First, in increasing order of frequency resource indexes for frequency-multiplexed PRACH occasions.
[0282] (b) Second, in increasing order of time resource indexes for time-multiplexed PRACH occasions within a PRACH slot.
[0283] (c) Third, in increasing order of indexes for PRACH slots.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0284] In some aspects, RACH occasion ordering determination can be performed separately for each PRACH resource configuration. The disclosed techniques can be based on one or more of the following configurations.
[0285] SS / PBCH block indexes provided by ssb-PositionsInBurst in SIB1 or in ServingCellConfigCommon or in SSB-MTC-AdditionalPCI or in LTM-SSB-Config are mapped to valid PRACH occasions in the following order for each PRACH configuration, where the parameters are described in TS 38.211 :
[0286] (a) First, in increasing order of preamble indexes within a single PRACH occasion.
[0287] (b) Second, in increasing order of frequency resource indexes for frequency-multiplexed PRACH occasions.
[0288] (c) Third, in increasing order of time resource indexes for time-multiplexed PRACH occasions within a PRACH slot.
[0289] (d) Fourth, in increasing order of indexes for PRACH slots.
[0290] In some aspects, the PRACH occasions are mapped consecutively per corresponding SS / PBCH block index for each PRACH configuration. In some aspects, the indexing of the PRACH occasion indicated by the mask index value is reset per mapping cycle of consecutive PRACH occasions per SS / PBCH block index. The UE selects, for a PRACH transmission, the PRACH occasion corresponding to the PRACH mask index value for the indicated SS / PBCH block index in the first available mapping cycle.
[0291] For the indicated preamble index, the ordering of the PRACH occasions can be configured as follows:
[0292] (a) First, in increasing order of frequency resource indexes for frequency-multiplexed PRACH occasions.
[0293] (b) Second, in increasing order of time resource indexes for time-multiplexed PRACH occasions within a PRACH slot.
[0294] (c) Third, in increasing order of indexes for PRACH slots.
[0295] In some cases, for PRACH repetitions or multiple PRACH transmissions with the same Tx beams, the PRACH occasion group is determined separately for the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resources for PRACH adaptation. In particular, the followingAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1configurations can be separately applied to the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resources.
[0296] For a PRACH transmission with preamble repetitions, a time period, starting from frame 0, is the smallest integer number of association pattern periods such that at least one set of valid PRACH occasions for each of theSS / PBCH block indexes can be determined within the time period for all configured numbers of preamble repetitions. The set(s) of valid PRACH occasions for each configured number of preamble repetitions repeat every time period.
[0297] Within a time period, for set(s) of ^preamblevalid PRACH occasions for a PRACH transmission with Npramblepreamble repetitions:
[0298] (a) the first valid PRACH occasion of the first set is the first valid PRACH occasion;
[0299] (b) the first valid PRACH occasion of subsequent sets, if any, is determined according to an ordering of valid PRACH occasions
[0300] (b.1) first, in increasing order of frequency resource indexes for frequency -multiplexed PRACH occasions,
[0301] (b.2) second, in increasing order of time resource indexes for time multiplexed PRACH occasions, where, for each frequency resource index for frequency multiplexed PRACH occasions;
[0302] (c) the first valid PRACH occasion of the first set is the first valid PRACH occasion; and
[0303] (d) the first valid PRACH occasion of subsequent sets, if any,
[0304] (d.1) is after msgl-RepetitionTimeOffsetROGroup consecutive valid PRACH occasions in time from the first valid PRACH occasion of the previous set, where each PRACH occasion is associated with the same SS / PBCH block index(es) and each SS / PBCH block index is associated with the same preambles, if msgl-RepetitionTimeOffsetROGroup is provided; and
[0305] (d.2) is after the PRACH occasions for the previous set, if msgl-RepetitionTimeOffsetROGroup is not provided.
[0306] In some aspects, valid RACH occasion determination for PRACH repetition transmission can be performed separately for each PRACHAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1configuration, such as Type-1 PRACH configuration, Type-2 PRACH configuration, and additional PRACH configuration dynamically enabled or disabled by downlink control information. The following configurations can be applied:
[0307] For a PRACH transmission with preamble repetitions, a time period, starting from frame 0, is the smallest integer number of association pattern periods such that at least one set of valid PRACH occasions for each of theSS / PBCH block indexes can be determined within the time period for all configured numbers of preamble repetitions for each PRACH configuration. The set(s) of valid PRACH occasions for each configured number of preamble repetitions repeat every time period.
[0308] Within a time period, for set(s) of ^preamblevalid PRACH occasions for a PRACH transmission with Npramblepreamble repetitions:
[0309] (a) the first valid PRACH occasion of the first set is the first valid PRACH occasion;
[0310] (b) the first valid PRACH occasion of subsequent sets, if any, is determined according to an ordering of valid PRACH occasions:
[0311] (b.1) first, in increasing order of frequency resource indexes for frequency multiplexed PRACH occasions, and
[0312] (b.2) second, in increasing order of time resource indexes for time multiplexed PRACH occasions, where, for each frequency resource index for frequency multiplexed PRACH occasions;
[0313] (c) the first valid PRACH occasion of the first set is the first valid PRACH occasion;
[0314] (d) the first valid PRACH occasion of subsequent sets, if any,
[0315] (d.1) is after msgl-RepetitionTimeOffsetROGroup consecutive valid PRACH occasions in time from the first valid PRACH occasion of the previous set, where each PRACH occasion is associated with the same SS / PBCH block index(es) and each SS / PBCH block index is associated with the same preambles, if msgl-RepetitionTimeOffsetROGroup is provided; and
[0316] (e) is after the PRACH occasions for the previous set, if msgl-RepetitionTimeOffsetROGroup is not provided.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0317] In some aspects, for PRACH repetitions or multiple PRACH transmissions with the same Tx beams, PRACH occasion group determination can be jointly determined in accordance with the union of the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resources for PRACH adaptation.
[0318] In some aspects, a system and method of wireless communication for a cellular system includes functionalities, such as determining, by a UE, an RA-RNTI for additional physical random access channel (PRACH) resources. The functionalities further include decoding, by the UE, a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) with Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) scrambled by the determined RA-RNTI.
[0319] In some aspects, when the UE sends a PRACH preamble from the additional PRACH resource configurations, the UE monitors PDCCH with CRC scrambled by an RA-RNTI, which is determined in accordance with the number of PRACH occasions that are FDM'ed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resources.
[0320] In some aspects, the number of PRACH occasions that are FDM’ed in one time instance is determined based on the parameter msgl-FDM that is configured for the existing PRACH resources.
[0321] In some aspects, the index of the PRACH occasion in the frequency domain (f id) can be determined as f id + NRO, where f id is the index of the PRACH occasion in the frequency domain for the additional PRACH resources, and NRO is the number of PRACH occasions that are FDM’ed in one time instance (msgl-FDM) for the existing PRACH resources.
[0322] In some aspects, MSGB-RNTI can be determined in accordance with the number of PRACH occasions that are FDM'ed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resources.
[0323] In some aspects, when the UE sends a PRACH preamble from the additional PRACH resource configurations, the UE monitors PDCCH with CRC scrambled by a RA-RNTI with a fixed offset from the existing RA-RNTI.
[0324] In some aspects, an offset may be added to the RA-RNTI determination for additional PRACH resources, wherein the offset may be determined as a function of PRACH resource configuration ID.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0325] In some aspects, when the field in the DCI format for PDCCH ordered PRACH transmission indicates that the additional PRACH resources are available for PRACH transmission, and if the value of the random access preamble index field is not zero, the UE determines the PRACH preamble index that is a valid PRACH preamble index based on either existing PRACH resource configurations or additional PRACH resource configurations.
[0326] In some aspects, if the UE determines that the PRACH preamble index is valid in either the existing PRACH resource configurations or the additional PRACH resource configurations, the UE transmits the PRACH using the indicated PRACH index in either the existing PRACH resources or the additional PRACH resources.
[0327] In some aspects, if the UE determines that the PRACH preamble index is not a valid PRACH preamble index based on one of the existing or additional PRACH resource configurations, the UE does not transmit the PRACH in one of the existing or additional PRACH resources.
[0328] In some aspects, when the field in the DCI format for PDCCH ordered PRACH transmission indicates that the additional PRACH resources are available for PRACH transmission, the UE expects that the indicated PRACH preamble index is valid for both existing PRACH resources and the additional PRACH resources.
[0329] In some aspects, when the field in the DCI format for PDCCH ordered PRACH transmission indicates that the additional PRACH resources are available for PRACH transmission, and if the value of the random access preamble index field is not zero, if the UE determines that the PRACH preamble index is valid in either the existing PRACH resource configurations or the additional PRACH resource configurations, the UE transmits the PRACH using the indicated PRACH index in the earlier PRACH occasion from the existing PRACH resources and the additional PRACH resources that satisfy the timeline requirement.
[0330] In some aspects, PRACH occasion ordering is separately determined for the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resources for PRACH adaptation.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0331] In some aspects, for PRACH repetitions or multiple PRACH transmissions with the same Tx beams, PRACH occasion group determination is separately determined for the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resources for PRACH adaptation.
[0332] FIG. 10 illustrates a block diagram of a communication device such as an evolved Node-B (eNB), a new generation Node-B (gNB) (or another RAN node such as a base station), a network-controlled repeater (NCR), an access point (AP), a wireless station (STA), a mobile station (MS), or user equipment (UE), in accordance with some aspects and to perform one or more of the techniques disclosed herein. In alternative aspects, the communication device 1000 may operate as a standalone device or may be connected (e.g., networked) to other communication devices.
[0333] Circuitry (e.g., processing circuitry) is a collection of circuits implemented in tangible components of the device 1000, including hardware (e.g., simple circuits, gates, logic). Circuitry membership may be flexible over time. Circuitries include members that may, alone or in combination, perform specified operations when operating. For example, the circuitry hardware may be immutably designed to carry out a specific operation (e.g., hardwired). For example, the circuitry may include variably connected physical components (e.g., execution units, transistors, simple circuits, etc.), including a machine-readable medium physically modified (e.g., magnetically, electrically, or by moving invariant-mass particles) to encode instructions for the specific operation.
[0334] In connecting the physical components, the underlying electrical properties of a hardware constituent are changed, for example, from an insulator to a conductor or vice versa. The instructions enable embedded hardware (e.g., execution units or a loading mechanism) to create members of the circuitry in hardware via variable connections, thereby carrying out portions of the specific operation during operation. Accordingly, in an example, the machine-readable medium elements are part of the circuitry or are communicatively coupled to the other components of the circuitry when the device is operating. For example, any physical component may be used in more than one member of more than one circuitry. For example, under operation, execution units may be used in theAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1first circuit of a first circuitry at one point in time and reused by a second circuit in the first circuitry or by a third circuit in a second circuitry at a different time. Additional examples of these components with respect to the device 1000 follow.
[0335] In some aspects, the device 1000 may operate as a standalone device or may be connected (e.g., networked) to other devices. In a networked deployment, the communication device 1000 may operate as a server communication device, a client communication device, or both in server-client network environments. For example, the communication device 1000 may act as a peer-to-peer (P2P) communication device in a peer-to-peer (P2P) or other distributed network environment. The communication device 1000 may be a UE, eNB, PC, tablet PC, STB, PDA, mobile telephone, smartphone, a web appliance, network router, a switch or bridge, or any communication device capable of executing instructions (sequential or otherwise) that specify actions to be taken by that communication device. Further, while only a single communication device is illustrated, the term “communication device” shall also be taken to include any collection of communication devices that individually or jointly execute a set (or multiple sets) of instructions to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, such as cloud computing, software as a service (SaaS), and other computer cluster configurations.
[0336] Examples, as described herein, may include or may operate on logic or several components, modules, or mechanisms. Modules are tangible entities (e.g., hardware) capable of performing specified operations and may be configured or arranged in a particular manner. In an example, circuits may be arranged (e.g., internally or with respect to external entities such as other circuits) in a specified manner as a module. In an example, the whole or part of one or more computer systems (e.g., a standalone, client, or server computer system) or one or more hardware processors may be configured by firmware or software (e.g., instructions, an application portion, or an application) as a module that operates to perform specified operations. In an example, the software may reside on a communication device-readable medium. In an example, the software, when executed by the underlying hardware of the module, causes the hardware to perform the specified operations.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0337] Accordingly, the term “module” is understood to encompass a tangible entity, be that an entity that is physically constructed, specifically configured (e.g., hardwired), or temporarily (e.g., transitorily) configured (e.g., programmed) to operate in a specified manner or to perform part or all of any operation described herein. Considering examples in which modules are temporarily configured, each of the modules does not need to be instantiated at any one moment in time. For example, where the modules comprise a general-purpose hardware processor configured using the software, the general -purpose hardware processor may be configured as different modules at different times. The software may accordingly configure a hardware processor, for example, to constitute a particular module at one instance of time and to constitute a different module at a different instance of time.
[0338] The communication device (e.g., UE) 1000 may include a hardware processor 1002 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU), a hardware processor core, or any combination thereof), a main memory 1004, a static memory 1006, and a storage device 1016 (e.g., hard drive, tape drive, flash storage, or other block or storage devices), some or all of which may communicate with each other via an interlink 1008 (e.g., a bus).
[0339] The communication device 1000 may further include a display device 1010, an input device 1012 (e.g., a keyboard), and a user interface (UI) navigation device 1014 (e.g., a mouse). In an example, the display device 1010, input device 1012, and UI navigation device 1014 may be a touchscreen display. The communication device 1000 may additionally include a signal generation device 1018 (e.g., a speaker), a network interface device 1020, and one or more sensors 1021, such as a global positioning system (GPS) sensor, compass, accelerometer, or another sensor. The communication device 1000 may include an output controller 1028, such as a serial (e.g., universal serial bus (USB)), parallel, or other wired or wireless (e.g., infrared (IR), near field communication (NFC), etc.) connection to communicate or control one or more peripheral devices (e.g., a printer, card reader, etc.).
[0340] The storage device 1016 may include a device-readable medium 1022, on which one or more sets of data structures or instructions 1024 (e.g., software) are stored, embodying or utilized by any one or more of the techniques orAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1functions described herein. In some aspects, registers of the hardware processor 1002, the main memory 1004, the static memory 1006, and / or the storage device 1016 may be, or include (entirely or at least partially), the device-readable medium 1022, on which are stored the one or more sets of data structures or instructions 1024, embodying or utilized by any one or more of the techniques or functions described herein. In an example, one or any combination of the hardware processor 1002, the main memory 1004, the static memory 1006, or the storage device 1016 may constitute the device-readable medium 1022.
[0341] As used herein, the term “device-readable medium” is interchangeable with “computer-readable medium” or “machine-readable medium.” While the device-readable medium 1022 is illustrated as a single medium, the term “communication device-readable medium” may refer to a single medium or to multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database and / or associated caches and servers) configured to store the instructions 1024. The term “communication device-readable medium” is inclusive of the terms “machine-readable medium” or “computer-readable medium” and may include any medium that is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying instructions (e.g., instructions 1024) for execution by the communication device 1000 and that causes the communication device 1000 to perform any one or more of the disclosed techniques, or that is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying data structures used by or associated with such instructions. Non-limiting examples of communication device-readable media may include solid-state memories and optical and magnetic media. Specific examples of communication device-readable media may include non-volatile memory, such as semiconductor memory devices (e.g., Electrically Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM), Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM)) and flash memory devices; magnetic disks, such as internal hard disks and removable disks; magneto-optical disks; Random Access Memory (RAM); and CD-ROM and DVD-ROM disks. In some examples, communication device-readable media may include non-transitory communication device-readable media. In some examples, communication device-readable media may include communication device-readable media that are not transitory propagating signals.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0342] Instructions 1024 may further be transmitted or received over a communications network 1026 using a transmission medium via the network interface device 1020, utilizing any one of several transfer protocols. In an example, the network interface device 1020 may include one or more physical jacks (e.g., Ethernet, coaxial, or phonejacks) or one or more antennas to connect to the communications network 1026. In an example, the network interface device 1020 may include a plurality of antennas to wirelessly communicate using at least one of the single-input-multiple-output (SIMO), multiple-input-multiple-output (MEMO), or multiple-input-single-output (MISO) techniques. In some examples, the network interface device 1020 may wirelessly communicate using multiple-user MIMO techniques.
[0343] The term “transmission medium” shall be taken to include any intangible medium that is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying instructions for execution by the communication device 1000, and includes digital or analog communications signals or another intangible medium to facilitate communication of such software. In this regard, a transmission medium in the context of the disclosed techniques is a device-readable medium.
[0344] The terms “machine-readable medium,” “computer-readable medium,” and “device-readable medium” mean the same thing and may be used interchangeably. The terms are defined to include both machine-storage media and transmission media. Thus, the terms include both storage devices / media and carrier waves / modulated data signals.
[0345] For handling evaluations based on synchronization signals that are activated only when needed, the device is expected to possess certain radio and processing attributes to align with the expected speed and precision of these tasks. These attributes ensure the device can swiftly adjust its reception settings, reliably detect intermittent signals, and process them without exceeding allowable delays or error margins, particularly in higher-frequency operations or combined-carrier environments where quick cell readiness is crucial.
[0346] A primary expectation is rapid adjustment of radio settings when switching between signal occasions on different frequencies, with the device capable of completing this shift in under half a millisecond for lower-frequency bands and even quicker (e.g., around a fifth of a millisecond) for higher-AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1frequency bands, to minimize interruptions during activation phases. This speed supports seamless transitions without compromising ongoing connections, assuming the hardware includes agile frequency synthesizers and filters that stabilize promptly after changes.
[0347] The processing circuitry and front-end support retuning between adjacent frequencies in the lower frequency range within approximately 0.6 milliseconds, and in the higher frequency range within approximately 0.3 milliseconds. The device maintains at least two independent reception paths in the lower frequency range and up to four reception branches in the higher frequency range to support parallel capture of synchronization signals. The baseband searchers operate at a sensitivity sufficient to declare detection for synchronization signals at levels near a configured threshold within the synchronization signal measurement timing configuration window.
[0348] The device can also maintain multiple independent reception paths, at a minimum two for basic diversity at lower frequencies and up to four at higher frequencies for advanced beam handling, allowing simultaneous capture from various directions or paths. This enables parallel signal processing, essential for quick assessments during limited availability windows, with the paths isolated to prevent cross-interference and equipped with sufficient gain control to adapt to varying signal strengths.
[0349] Signal detection thresholds are set so the device can reliably identify and measure these intermittent references, even at low power levels, typically around -94 dB relative to a milliwatt or better, depending on the operational band and noise conditions. This sensitivity ensures high-probability acquisition (e.g., over 90%) in environments with moderate interference, leveraging correlation techniques in the processing core to extract timing and quality metrics from brief bursts.
[0350] On the processing side, the baseband must support dedicated units for signal searching, capable of handling up to eight layers concurrently without overload, including buffering for raw samples and filtering at higher layers to produce accurate power and quality reports within one or two cycles. These capabilities assume integrated digital front-ends with low-latency pipelines, enabling the device to meet activation timelines of 10 to 20 milliseconds,AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1including detection and reporting, while maintaining error rates below 1% for critical metrics.
[0351] Overall, these minimal traits (e.g., quick tuning, dual or quad reception paths, high detection thresholds, and robust parallel processing) form the foundation for efficiently handling demand-based signals, ensuring compliance with scaled timelines and accuracy bounds across diverse network setups.
[0352] Described implementations of the subject matter can include one or more features, alone or in combination, as illustrated below by way of examples.
[0353] Example 1 is an apparatus for a user equipment (UE) configured for operation in a New Radio (NR) network, the apparatus comprising: processing circuitry, wherein the processing circuitry is to: encode a Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) preamble for transmission to a base station on an additional PRACH resource, the additional PRACH resource being frequency division multiplexed with an existing PRACH resource in the same time instance; determine an RA-RNTI for the additional PRACH resource based on a number of PRACH occasions that are frequency division multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource; and decode a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) received from the base station, the PDCCH having a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) scrambled by the RA-RNTI, to obtain a random access response (RAR); and memory coupled to the processing circuitry and configured to store the RA-RNTI.
[0354] In Example 2, the subject matter of Example 1 includes functionalities such that the number of PRACH occasions that are frequency division multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource is determined based on a parameter msgl-FDM configured for the existing PRACH resource.
[0355] In Example 3, the subject matter of Example 2 includes functionalities such that the processing circuitry is to: determine the RA-RNTI by computing a frequency domain index for the additional PRACH resource as a sum of an index of a PRACH occasion in a frequency domain for the additional PRACH resource and the number of PRACH occasions indicated by the parameter msgl-FDM for the existing PRACH resource.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0356] In Example 4, the subject matter of Example 3 includes functionalities such that the RA-RNTI is computed as: RA-RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 xt_id + 14 x 80 x f id + 14 x 80 x 8 x ul carrier id, wherein s_id is an index of a first OFDM symbol of the PRACH occasion, t_id is an index of a first slot of the PRACH occasion in a system frame, f id is the frequency domain index for the additional PRACH resource, and ul carrier id identifies an uplink carrier used for the transmission of the PRACH preamble.
[0357] In Example 5, the subject matter of Example 1 includes functionalities such that a separate starting frequency offset is configured for the additional PRACH resource relative to the existing PRACH resource.
[0358] In Example 6, the subject matter of Example 1 includes functionalities such that the processing circuitry is to: determine the RA-RNTI for the additional PRACH resource by applying a fixed offset to an RA-RNTI value that would be determined for the existing PRACH resource.
[0359] In Example 7, the subject matter of Example 6 includes functionalities such that the fixed offset is determined as a function of a PRACH resource configuration identifier, the PRACH resource configuration identifier being set to zero for the existing PRACH resource and set to one for the additional PRACH resource.
[0360] In Example 8, the subject matter of Example 7 includes functionalities such that the RA-RNTI is computed as: RA-RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 x t_id + 14 x 80 x f id + 14 x 80 x 8 x ul_carrier_id + 14 x 80 x 8 x 2 x r id, wherein s_id is an index of a first OFDM symbol of a PRACH occasion, t_id is an index of a first slot of the PRACH occasion in a system frame, f id is an index of the PRACH occasion in a frequency domain, ul carrier id identifies an uplink carrier used for the transmission of the PRACH preamble, and r id is the PRACH resource configuration identifier.
[0361] In Example 9, the subject matter of Example 1 includes functionalities such that the processing circuitry is to: determine a Message B Radio Network Temporary Identifier (MSGB-RNTI) for a two-step random access channel (RACH) procedure using the additional PRACH resource based on the number of PRACH occasions that are frequency division multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0362] In Example 10, the subject matter of Example 9 includes functionalities such that the MSGB-RNTI is computed as: MSGB-RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 x t_id + 14 x 80 x f id + 14 x 80 x 8 x ul_carrier_id + 14 x 80 x 8 x 2, wherein s_id is an index of a first OFDM symbol of a PRACH occasion, t_id is an index of a first slot of the PRACH occasion in a system frame, f id is a frequency domain index for the additional PRACH resource computed as a sum of an index of the PRACH occasion in a frequency domain for the additional PRACH resource and the number of PRACH occasions that are frequency division multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource, and ul carrier id identifies an uplink carrier used for the transmission of the PRACH preamble.
[0363] In Example 11, the subject matter of Example 1 includes functionalities such that the processing circuitry is to: decode downlink control information (DCI) in a DCI format 1 0 with a Cell Radio Network Temporary Identifier (C-RNTI) received from the base station for a PDCCH-ordered PRACH transmission, the DCI including a field indicating whether the additional PRACH resource is available for a triggered PRACH transmission.
[0364] In Example 12, the subject matter of Example 11 includes functionalities such that the field comprises a single bit, a first value of the single bit indicating that the additional PRACH resource is not available for the triggered PRACH transmission, and a second value of the single bit indicating that the additional PRACH resource and the existing PRACH resource are both available for the triggered PRACH transmission.
[0365] In Example 13, the subject matter of Example 12 includes functionalities such that the processing circuitry is to, responsive to the field indicating that the additional PRACH resource is available and a random access preamble index field in the DCI having a non-zero value: determine whether a PRACH preamble index indicated by the random access preamble index field is valid based on at least one of an existing PRACH resource configuration or an additional PRACH resource configuration; and encode the PRACH preamble for transmission using the indicated PRACH preamble index on a PRACH resource corresponding to a PRACH resource configuration for which the indicated PRACH preamble index is valid.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0366] In Example 14, the subject matter of Example 13 includes functionalities such that the processing circuitry is to: refrain from encoding the PRACH preamble for transmission on a PRACH resource corresponding to a PRACH resource configuration for which the indicated PRACH preamble index is not valid.
[0367] In Example 15, the subject matter of Example 12 includes functionalities such that the processing circuitry is to, responsive to the field indicating that the additional PRACH resource is available and a random access preamble index field in the DCI having a non-zero value: determine that a PRACH preamble index indicated by the random access preamble index field is valid in at least one of an existing PRACH resource configuration or an additional PRACH resource configuration; and encode the PRACH preamble for transmission using the indicated PRACH preamble index on an earlier PRACH occasion from the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource that satisfies a timeline requirement.
[0368] In Example 16, the subject matter of Example 11 includes functionalities such that the processing circuitry is to, responsive to the field indicating that the additional PRACH resource is available: determine that a PRACH preamble index indicated in the DCI is valid for both the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource.
[0369] In Example 17, the subject matter of Example 1 includes functionalities such that the processing circuitry is to: determine a PRACH occasion ordering separately for the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource, the PRACH occasion ordering comprising mapping synchronization signal / physical broadcast channel (SS / PBCH) block indexes to valid PRACH occasions independently for each of the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource.
[0370] In Example 18, the subject matter of Example 17 includes functionalities such that the mapping of the SS / PBCH block indexes to valid PRACH occasions for each of the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource follows an order of: first, increasing preamble indexes within a single PRACH occasion; second, increasing frequency resource indexes for frequency-multiplexed PRACH occasions; third, increasing time resourceAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1indexes for time-multiplexed PRACH occasions within a PRACH slot; and fourth, increasing indexes for PRACH slots.
[0371] In Example 19, the subject matter of Example 1 includes functionalities such that the processing circuitry is to, for PRACH preamble repetitions: determine valid PRACH occasion groups separately for the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource.
[0372] In Example 20, the subject matter of Example 19 includes functionalities such that the valid PRACH occasion groups are determined separately for each PRACH configuration comprising at least one of a Type-1 PRACH configuration, a Type-2 PRACH configuration, or an additional PRACH configuration dynamically enabled or disabled by downlink control information.
[0373] In Example 21, the subject matter of Example 1 includes functionalities such that the apparatus further comprises: transceiver circuitry coupled to the processing circuitry; and one or more antennas coupled to the transceiver circuitry.
[0374] Example 22 is a computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of a user equipment (UE), the instructions to configure the UE for operation in a New Radio (NR) network, and to cause the UE to perform operations comprising: encoding a Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) preamble for transmission to a base station on an additional PRACH resource, the additional PRACH resource being frequency-division multiplexed with an existing PRACH resource in a same time instance; determining an RA-RNTI for the additional PRACH resource based on a number of PRACH occasions that are frequency -division multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource; and decoding a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) received from the base station, the PDCCH having a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) scrambled by the RA-RNTI, to obtain a random access response (RAR).
[0375] In Example 23, the subject matter of Example 22 includes functionalities such that the number of PRACH occasions that are frequencydivision multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource isAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1determined based on a parameter msgl-FDM configured for the existing PRACH resource.
[0376] In Example 24, the subject matter of Example 23 includes functionalities such that the operations further comprise: determining the RA-RNTI by computing a frequency-domain index for the additional PRACH resource as a sum of an index of a PRACH occasion in a frequency domain for the additional PRACH resource and the number of PRACH occasions indicated by the parameter msgl-FDM for the existing PRACH resource.
[0377] In Example 25, the subject matter of Example 24 includes functionalities such that the RA-RNTI is computed as: RA-RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 x t_id + 14 x 80 x f id + 14 x 80 x 8 x ul_carrier_id, wherein s_id is an index of a first OFDM symbol of the PRACH occasion, t_id is an index of a first slot of the PRACH occasion in a system frame, f id is the frequency domain index for the additional PRACH resource, and ul carrier id identifies an uplink carrier used for the transmission of the PRACH preamble.
[0378] In Example 26, the subject matter of Example 22 includes functionalities such that a separate starting frequency offset is configured for the additional PRACH resource relative to the existing PRACH resource.
[0379] In Example 27, the subject matter of Example 22 includes functionalities such that the operations further comprise: determining the RA-RNTI for the additional PRACH resource by applying a fixed offset to an RA-RNTI value that would be determined for the existing PRACH resource.
[0380] In Example 28, the subject matter of Example 27 includes functionalities such that the fixed offset is determined as a function of a PRACH resource configuration identifier, the PRACH resource configuration identifier being set to zero for the existing PRACH resource and set to one for the additional PRACH resource.
[0381] In Example 29, the subject matter of Example 28 includes functionalities such that the RA-RNTI is computed as: RA-RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 x t_id + 14 x 80 x f id + 14 x 80 x 8 x ul_carrier_id + 14 x 80 x 8 x 2 x r id, wherein s_id is an index of a first OFDM symbol of a PRACH occasion, t_id is an index of a first slot of the PRACH occasion in a system frame, f id is an index of the PRACH occasion in a frequency domain, ul carrier id identifies anAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1uplink carrier used for the transmission of the PRACH preamble, and r id is the PRACH resource configuration identifier.
[0382] In Example 30, the subject matter of Example 22 includes functionalities such that the operations further comprise: determining a Message B Radio Network Temporary Identifier (MSGB-RNTI) for a two-step random access channel (RACH) procedure using the additional PRACH resource based on the number of PRACH occasions that are frequency division multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource.
[0383] In Example 31, the subject matter of Example 30 includes functionalities such that the MSGB-RNTI is computed as: MSGB-RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 x t_id + 14 x 80 x f id + 14 x 80 x 8 x ul_carrier_id + 14 x 80 x 8 x 2, wherein s_id is an index of a first OFDM symbol of a PRACH occasion, t_id is an index of a first slot of the PRACH occasion in a system frame, f id is a frequency domain index for the additional PRACH resource computed as a sum of an index of the PRACH occasion in a frequency domain for the additional PRACH resource and the number of PRACH occasions that are frequency division multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource, and ul carrier id identifies an uplink carrier used for the transmission of the PRACH preamble.
[0384] In Example 32, the subject matter of Example 22 includes functionalities such that the operations further comprise: decoding downlink control information (DCI) in a DCI format 1 0 with a Cell Radio Network Temporary Identifier (C-RNTI) received from the base station for a PDCCH-ordered PRACH transmission, the DCI including a field indicating whether the additional PRACH resource is available for a triggered PRACH transmission.
[0385] In Example 33, the subject matter of Example 32 includes functionalities such that the field comprises a single bit, a first value of the single bit indicating that the additional PRACH resource is not available for the triggered PRACH transmission, and a second value of the single bit indicating that the additional PRACH resource and the existing PRACH resource are both available for the triggered PRACH transmission.
[0386] In Example 34, the subject matter of Example 33 includes functionalities such that the operations further comprise, responsive to the fieldAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1indicating that the additional PRACH resource is available and a random access preamble index field in the DCI having a non-zero value: determining whether a PRACH preamble index indicated by the random access preamble index field is valid based on at least one of an existing PRACH resource configuration or an additional PRACH resource configuration; and encoding the PRACH preamble for transmission using the indicated PRACH preamble index on a PRACH resource corresponding to a PRACH resource configuration for which the indicated PRACH preamble index is valid.
[0387] In Example 35, the subject matter of Example 34 includes functionalities such that the operations further comprise: refraining from encoding the PRACH preamble for transmission on a PRACH resource corresponding to a PRACH resource configuration for which the indicated PRACH preamble index is not valid.
[0388] In Example 36, the subject matter of Example 33 includes functionalities such that the operations further comprise, responsive to the field indicating that the additional PRACH resource is available and a random access preamble index field in the DCI having a non-zero value: determining that a PRACH preamble index indicated by the random access preamble index field is valid in at least one of an existing PRACH resource configuration or an additional PRACH resource configuration; and encoding the PRACH preamble for transmission using the indicated PRACH preamble index on an earlier PRACH occasion from the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource that satisfies a timeline requirement.
[0389] In Example 37, the subject matter of Example 32 includes functionalities such that the operations further comprise, responsive to the field indicating that the additional PRACH resource is available: determining that a PRACH preamble index indicated in the DCI is valid for both the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource.
[0390] In Example 38, the subject matter of Example 22 includes functionalities such that the operations further comprise: determining a PRACH occasion ordering separately for the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource, the PRACH occasion ordering comprising mapping synchronization signal / physical broadcast channel (SS / PBCH) block indexes toAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1valid PRACH occasions independently for each of the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource.
[0391] In Example 39, the subject matter of Example 38 includes functionalities such that the mapping of the SS / PBCH block indexes to valid PRACH occasions for each of the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource follows an order of: first, increasing preamble indexes within a single PRACH occasion; second, increasing frequency resource indexes for frequency-multiplexed PRACH occasions; third, increasing time resource indexes for time-multiplexed PRACH occasions within a PRACH slot; and fourth, increasing indexes for PRACH slots.
[0392] In Example 40, the subject matter of Example 22 includes functionalities such that the operations further comprise, for PRACH preamble repetitions: determining valid PRACH occasion groups separately for the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource.
[0393] In Example 41, the subject matter of Example 40 includes functionalities such that the valid PRACH occasion groups are determined separately for each PRACH configuration comprising at least one of a Type-1 PRACH configuration, a Type-2 PRACH configuration, or an additional PRACH configuration dynamically enabled or disabled by downlink control information.
[0394] Example 42 is an apparatus for a base station configured for operation in a New Radio (NR) network, the apparatus comprising: processing circuitry, wherein the processing circuitry is to: configure an additional Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) resource and an existing PRACH resource that are frequency-division multiplexed in a same time instance; decode a PRACH preamble received from a user equipment (UE) on the additional PRACH resource; determine a Random Access Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RA-RNTI) for the additional PRACH resource based on a number of PRACH occasions that are frequency -division multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource; and encode a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) for transmission to the UE, the PDCCH having a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) scrambled by the RA-RNTI, the PDCCH carrying a random access response (RAR); and memory coupled to the processing circuitry andAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1configured to store a PRACH resource configuration identifying the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource.
[0395] In Example 43, the subject matter of Example 42 includes functionalities such that the number of PRACH occasions that are frequencydivision multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource is determined based on a parameter msgl-FDM configured for the existing PRACH resource.
[0396] In Example 44, the subject matter of Example 43 includes functionalities such that the processing circuitry is to: determine the RA-RNTI by computing a frequency-domain index for the additional PRACH resource as a sum of an index of a PRACH occasion in a frequency domain for the additional PRACH resource and the number of PRACH occasions indicated by the parameter msgl-FDM for the existing PRACH resource.
[0397] In Example 45, the subject matter of Example 44 includes functionalities such that the RA-RNTI is computed as: RA-RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 x t_id + 14 x 80 x f id + 14 x 80 x 8 x ul_carrier_id, wherein s_id is an index of a first OFDM symbol of the PRACH occasion, t_id is an index of a first slot of the PRACH occasion in a system frame, f id is the frequency domain index for the additional PRACH resource, and ul carrier id identifies an uplink carrier on which the PRACH preamble is received.
[0398] In Example 46, the subject matter of Example 42 includes functionalities such that a separate starting frequency offset is configured for the additional PRACH resource relative to the existing PRACH resource.
[0399] In Example 47, the subject matter of Example 42 includes functionalities such that the processing circuitry is to: determine the RA-RNTI for the additional PRACH resource by applying a fixed offset to an RA-RNTI value that would be determined for the existing PRACH resource.
[0400] In Example 48, the subject matter of Example 47 includes functionalities such that the fixed offset is determined as a function of a PRACH resource configuration identifier, the PRACH resource configuration identifier being set to zero for the existing PRACH resource and set to one for the additional PRACH resource.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1
[0401] In Example 49, the subject matter of Example 48 includes functionalities such that the RA-RNTI is computed as: RA-RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 x t_id + 14 x 80 x f id + 14 x 80 x 8 x ul_carrier_id + 14 x 80 x 8 x 2 x r id, wherein s_id is an index of a first OFDM symbol of a PRACH occasion, t_id is an index of a first slot of the PRACH occasion in a system frame, f id is an index of the PRACH occasion in a frequency domain, ul carrier id identifies an uplink carrier on which the PRACH preamble is received, and r id is the PRACH resource configuration identifier.
[0402] In Example 50, the subject matter of Example 42 includes functionalities such that the processing circuitry is to: encode downlink control information (DCI) in a DCI format 1 0 with a Cell Radio Network Temporary Identifier (C-RNTI) for transmission to the UE for a PDCCH-ordered PRACH transmission, the DCI including a field indicating whether the additional PRACH resource is available for a triggered PRACH transmission.
[0403] In Example 51, the subject matter of Example 50 includes functionalities such that the field comprises a single bit, a first value of the single bit indicating that the additional PRACH resource is not available for the triggered PRACH transmission, and a second value of the single bit indicating that the additional PRACH resource and the existing PRACH resource are both available for the triggered PRACH transmission.
[0404] In Example 52, the subject matter of Example 51 includes functionalities such that the processing circuitry is to: include a random access preamble index in the DCI that is valid based on at least one of an existing PRACH resource configuration or an additional PRACH resource configuration.
[0405] In Example 53, the subject matter of Example 50 includes functionalities such that the processing circuitry is to: include a random access preamble index in the DCI that is valid for both the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource.
[0406] In Example 54, the subject matter of Example 42 includes functionalities such that the processing circuitry is to: configure a PRACH occasion ordering separately for the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource, the PRACH occasion ordering comprising mapping synchronization signal / physical broadcast channel (SS / PBCH) block indexes toAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1valid PRACH occasions independently for each of the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource.
[0407] In Example 55, the subject matter of Example 42 includes functionalities such that the processing circuitry is to configure valid PRACH occasion groups for PRACH preamble repetitions separately for the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource.
[0408] Example 56 is at least one machine-readable medium including instructions that, when executed by processing circuitry, cause the processing circuitry to perform operations to implement any of Examples 1-55.
[0409] Example 57 is an apparatus comprising means to implement any of Examples 1-55.
[0410] Example 58 is a system to implement any of Examples 1-55.
[0411] Example 59 is a method to implement any of Examples 1-55.
[0412] Example 60 is at least one machine-readable storage including machine-readable instructions, which, when executed, cause a computer to implement a method or a process as claimed in any of Examples 1-55.
[0413] Example 61 is a computer program comprising instructions which, when the program is executed by a computer, cause the computer to carry out one or more operations according to at least one of Examples 1-55.
[0414] Example 62 is an apparatus comprising means to perform a method or a process as recited by at least one of Examples 1-55.
[0415] Example 63 is a computer storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of a communication device, the instructions to cause the communication device to perform a method or a process as recited by at least one of Examples 1-55.
[0416] Although an aspect has been described concerning specific exemplary aspects, it will be evident that various modifications and changes may be made to these aspects without departing from the broader scope of the present disclosure. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense. This Detailed Description, therefore, is not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of various aspects is definedAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1only by the appended claims, along with the full range of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.
Claims
1. AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1CLAIMSWhat is claimed is:
1. An apparatus for a user equipment (UE) configured for operation in a New Radio (NR) network, the apparatus comprising:processing circuitry, wherein the processing circuitry is to:encode a Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) preamble for transmission to a base station on an additional PRACH resource, the additional PRACH resource being frequency division multiplexed with an existing PRACH resource in a same time instance;determine a Random Access Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RA-RNTI) for the additional PRACH resource based on a number of PRACH occasions that are frequency division multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource; anddecode a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) received from the base station, the PDCCH having a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) scrambled by the RA-RNTI, to obtain a random access response (RAR); andmemory coupled to the processing circuitry and configured to store the RA-RNTI.
2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the number of PRACH occasions that are frequency division multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource is determined based on a parameter msgl-FDM configured for the existing PRACH resource.
3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the processing circuitry is to:determine the RA-RNTI by computing a frequency domain index for the additional PRACH resource as a sum of an index of a PRACH occasion in a frequency domain for the additional PRACH resource and the number ofAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1PRACH occasions indicated by the parameter msgl-FDM for the existing PRACH resource.
4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the RA-RNTI is computed as:RA-RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 x t_id + 14 x 80 x f id + 14 x 80 x 8 x ul carrier id, wherein s_id is an index of a first OFDM symbol of the PRACH occasion, t_id is an index of a first slot of the PRACH occasion in a system frame, f id is the frequency domain index for the additional PRACH resource, and ul carrier id identifies an uplink carrier used for the transmission of the PRACH preamble.
5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein a separate starting frequency offset is configured for the additional PRACH resource relative to the existing PRACH resource.
6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is to:determine the RA-RNTI for the additional PRACH resource by applying a fixed offset to an RA-RNTI value that would be determined for the existing PRACH resource.
7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the fixed offset is determined as a function of a PRACH resource configuration identifier, the PRACH resource configuration identifier being set to zero for the existing PRACH resource and set to one for the additional PRACH resource.
8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the RA-RNTI is computed as:RA-RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 x t_id + 14 x 80 x f id + 14 x 80 x 8 x ul carrier id + 14 x 80 x 8 x 2 x r id, wherein s_id is an index of a first OFDM symbol of a PRACH occasion, t_id is an index of a first slot of the PRACH occasion in a system frame, f id is an index of the PRACH occasion in aAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1frequency domain, ul carrier id identifies an uplink carrier used for the transmission of the PRACH preamble, and r id is the PRACH resource configuration identifier.
9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is to:determine a Message B Radio Network Temporary Identifier (MSGB-RNTI) for a two-step random access channel (RACH) procedure using the additional PRACH resource based on the number of PRACH occasions that are frequency division multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource.
10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the MSGB-RNTI is computed as:MSGB-RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 x t_id + 14 x 80 x f id + 14 x 80 x 8 x ul carrier id + 14 x 80 x 8 x 2, wherein s_id is an index of a first OFDM symbol of a PRACH occasion, t_id is an index of a first slot of the PRACH occasion in a system frame, f id is a frequency domain index for the additional PRACH resource computed as a sum of an index of the PRACH occasion in a frequency domain for the additional PRACH resource and the number of PRACH occasions that are frequency division multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource, and ul carrier id identifies an uplink carrier used for the transmission of the PRACH preamble.
11. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is to:decode downlink control information (DCI) in a DCI format 1 0 with a Cell Radio Network Temporary Identifier (C-RNTI) received from the base station for a PDCCH-ordered PRACH transmission, the DCI including a field indicating whether the additional PRACH resource is available for a triggered PRACH transmission.
12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the field comprises a single bit, a first value of the single bit indicating that the additional PRACH resource is notAG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1available for the triggered PRACH transmission, and a second value of the single bit indicating that the additional PRACH resource and the existing PRACH resource are both available for the triggered PRACH transmission.
13. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:transceiver circuitry coupled to the processing circuitry; andone or more antennas coupled to the transceiver circuitry.
14. A computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of a user equipment (UE), the instructions to configure the UE for operation in a New Radio (NR) network, and to cause the UE to perform operations comprising:encoding a Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) preamble for transmission to a base station on an additional PRACH resource, the additional PRACH resource being frequency division multiplexed with an existing PRACH resource in a same time instance;determining a Random Access Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RA-RNTI) for the additional PRACH resource based on a number of PRACH occasions that are frequency division multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource; anddecoding a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) received from the base station, the PDCCH having a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) scrambled by the RA-RNTI, to obtain a random access response (RAR).
15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the number of PRACH occasions that are frequency division multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource is determined based on a parameter msgl-FDM configured for the existing PRACH resource.AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO116. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise:determining the RA-RNTI by computing a frequency domain index for the additional PRACH resource as a sum of an index of a PRACH occasion in a frequency domain for the additional PRACH resource and the number of PRACH occasions indicated by the parameter msgl-FDM for the existing PRACH resource.
17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the RA-RNTI is computed as:RA-RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 x t_id + 14 x 80 x f id + 14 x 80 x 8 x ul carrier id, wherein s_id is an index of a first OFDM symbol of the PRACH occasion, t_id is an index of a first slot of the PRACH occasion in a system frame, f id is the frequency domain index for the additional PRACH resource, and ul carrier id identifies an uplink carrier used for the transmission of the PRACH preamble.
18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein a separate starting frequency offset is configured for the additional PRACH resource relative to the existing PRACH resource.
19. An apparatus for a base station configured for operation in a New Radio (NR) network, the apparatus comprising:processing circuitry, wherein the processing circuitry is to:configure an additional Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) resource and an existing PRACH resource that are frequency division multiplexed in a same time instance;decode a PRACH preamble received from a user equipment (UE) on the additional PRACH resource;AG5801-PCT 1884.R71WO1determine a Random Access Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RA-RNTI) for the additional PRACH resource based on a number of PRACH occasions that are frequency division multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource; andencode a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) for transmission to the UE, the PDCCH having a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) scrambled by the RA-RNTI, the PDCCH carrying a random access response (RAR); andmemory coupled to the processing circuitry and configured to store a PRACH resource configuration identifying the existing PRACH resource and the additional PRACH resource.
20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the number of PRACH occasions that are frequency division multiplexed in one time instance for the existing PRACH resource is determined based on a parameter, msgl-FDM, configured for the existing PRACH resource.