Base Station QCL Relationship Determination for 5G Beam Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current beam management in 5G communications systems requires significant pilot and feedback overheads due to the need to determine the quasi-co-location (QCL) relationship between antenna ports of different serving cells, which is essential for efficient beam alignment but results in excessive resource consumption and inaccurate signaling.
Innovation Solution
The method involves grouping serving cells and using QCL indication signaling to inform user equipment (UE) about the QCL relationship between antenna ports, allowing for reduced pilot and feedback overheads by enabling the UE to transmit reference signals using a common beam for antenna ports in QCL, thereby optimizing beam management.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If beam management processes are performed separately for each serving cell to determine QCL relationships, then beam alignment accuracy is improved, but pilot overhead and feedback overhead increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the beam management processes of multiple serving cells by determining QCL relationships between antenna ports across different cells. When QCL relationships are established, the UE can use the same receive beam for multiple antenna ports, combining what would otherwise be separate beam management procedures into a unified process, thereby reducing pilot and feedback overhead while maintaining beam alignment accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies universality by enabling a single receive beam at the UE to serve multiple antenna ports across different serving cells when QCL relationships are present. This multi-functional approach allows the same beam to be used universally for receiving signals from multiple antenna ports, eliminating the need for separate beam management and reducing overhead.
2Measurement precision
If separate beam management is performed for each antenna port, then beam alignment accuracy is improved, but signaling overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges signaling for beam management across multiple antenna ports by establishing QCL relationships. When antenna ports are in QCL, the network can indicate a single TCI state or beam for multiple ports, combining what would otherwise be separate signaling messages, thereby reducing signaling overhead while preserving beam alignment accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent enables a single beam indication to serve multiple antenna ports universally when QCL relationships are established. This allows one signaling message to control multiple antenna ports simultaneously, making the signaling mechanism multi-functional and reducing overall signaling overhead.
3Productivity
If QCL relationships are determined between antenna ports of different serving cells, then resource efficiency is improved, but determination complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the determination of QCL relationships by introducing a reference antenna port concept. Instead of determining QCL relationships between all pairs of antenna ports across multiple cells, the system segments the process by establishing QCL relationships relative to a reference port, simplifying the overall determination complexity while improving resource efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses a reference antenna port as an intermediary to facilitate QCL relationship determination. By using the reference port as a mediator, the system can determine QCL relationships for multiple antenna ports through a standardized process, reducing determination complexity while maintaining resource efficiency.
Data Source
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AI summary
This application relates to the communications field, and specifically, to a communications method and system, and a related device. The communications method includes: when a base station determines that there is a QCL relationship between antenna ports of at least two serving cells in a same serving cell group, sending, by the base station to UE, QCL indication signaling used to indicate that there is the QCL relationship between the antenna ports of the at least two serving cells, where the serving cell group is a group predefined according to a preset rule or is a group obtained after the base station groups serving cells allocated to the user equipment UE. In embodiments of this application, the QCL relationship between the antenna ports of the serving cells in the same serving cell group is determined, and the QCL relationship is indicated to the UE by using the QCL indication signaling, so that the base station does not need to perform beam management on a beam corresponding to each serving cell, and only needs to separately perform beam management for serving cells whose antenna ports are not in a QCL relationship, thereby reducing pilot and feedback overheads in a beam management process.