The present disclosure provides a method and apparatus for a
user equipment (UE) that includes receiving, from a
radio access network (RAN) node, a broadcast message that contains an AIoT request from am AIoT function (AIoTF) of the
wireless communication network, the AIoT message includes information indicating that AIoT communication is requested and information indicating a
radio resource for the UE to use for the AIoT communication, determining by the UE whether it is configured for AIoT communication, in response to the UE determining that it is configured for AIoT communication receiving from one or more AIoT devices, a response, the response from each respective one of the one or more AIoT devices including the AIoT device identifier (ID) of the respective one of the one or more AIoT devices, and transmitting, to the AIoTF of the
wireless communication network, a response to the AIoT request that includes a UE identifier (UE ID) of the UE and the AIoT device IDs of the one or more AIoT devices. The present disclosure also provides a method and apparatus for an ambient
internet of things (AIoT) function (AIoTF) that includes receiving from an application function (AF) an AIoT request that requests AIoT communication and comprises information indicating a location associated with the requested AIoT communication, determining a
cell identifier (
cell ID) of a
cell associated with the location, transmitting a discovery AIoT command directed to a RAN node associated with the
cell ID, the AIoT command to cause the RAN node to transmit a discovery AIoT request to all of the
user equipment (UE) within the cell, receiving from one or more UEs responses to the discovery AIoT request, wherein each response comprises at least a UE identifier (UE ID) associated with a UE from which the response is received and one or more AIoT
device identifiers (IDs), based on the responses, generating binding information for each of the AIoT device IDs included in the received responses to the discovery AIoT request, the binding information comprising the AIoT device ID and the UE ID of a UE from which a response that included the AIoT device ID was received, updating a stored binding table based on the generated binding data, and transmitting to the AF a AIoT response to the AIoT request, the AIoT response comprising at least the AIoT device ID of each of the one or more AIoT devices for which a response to the discovery AIoT request was received.