WO2023011225A1 - Method and apparatus for non-terrestrial network handover, storage medium, and electronic device - Google Patents

Abstract

Provided in the present disclosure are a method and apparatus for non-terrestrial network handover, a storage medium, and an electronic device. The method comprises: a terminal generating measurement information, and sending the measurement information to a source base station by means of a network device; the terminal receiving handover information from the source base station by means of the network device, the handover information being determined by the measurement information; according to the handover information, the terminal performing configuration and feeding back a configuration success message to the source base station, the handover information comprising a network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information; the terminal determining whether the current time has reached the network handover trigger time, and the terminal executing a network handover to a candidate cell according to the determination result. The success rate and accuracy of network handover are increased, continuity of network service is further enhanced, and network service quality is increased.

Description

Non-terrestrial network switching method and device, storage medium and electronic equipment

Cross References to Related Applications

This application claims the priority of the Chinese patent application with the application number 202110888175.0 and titled "Non-terrestrial network switching method and device, storage medium and electronic equipment" filed on August 3, 2021. The entire content of the Chinese patent application is passed All references are incorporated herein.

technical field

The present disclosure relates to the technical field of communications, and in particular to a non-terrestrial network switching method and device, storage medium, and electronic equipment.

Background technique

5G introduces conditional handover technology in the research of terrestrial cellular network mobility enhancement to improve the robustness of handover. In conditional handover, the network configures handover execution conditions and multiple candidate cells for the user terminal equipment in advance, and the user selects one of them for handover. In the non-terrestrial network (Non-Terrestrial Network, NTN) scenario, one or several satellite gateways provide continuous services for mobile terminals on the ground. Especially in the scenario of non-geosynchronous orbit satellite communication, mobile terminals are required to perform network switching without interruption to ensure the continuity of service status.

Due to the large propagation delay of the satellite, the application of the existing network switching technology in the non-terrestrial system is easy to fail. Therefore, how to improve the success rate of network switching in non-terrestrial network systems to ensure service continuity is an urgent problem to be solved.

It should be noted that the information disclosed in the above background section is only for enhancing the understanding of the background of the present disclosure, and therefore may include information that does not constitute the prior art known to those of ordinary skill in the art.

Contents of the invention

The purpose of the present disclosure is to provide a non-terrestrial network switching method and device, storage medium and electronic equipment.

Other features and advantages of the present disclosure will become apparent from the following detailed description, or in part, be learned by practice of the present disclosure.

According to one aspect of the present disclosure, a non-terrestrial network handover method is provided, including: the terminal generates measurement information, and sends the measurement information to the source base station through the network device; the terminal receives the handover information from the source base station through the network device, and the handover information is obtained by Determined by the measurement information; the terminal configures according to the handover information, and feeds back a successful configuration message to the source base station, where the handover information includes the network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information; the terminal judges whether the current time reaches the network handover trigger time, and the terminal according to As a result of the judgment, the network is handed over to the candidate cell.

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, a non-terrestrial network handover method is provided, including: the source base station receives measurement information of the terminal through network equipment; the source base station determines handover information according to the measurement information, wherein the handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate The cell configuration information, the handover information is used to instruct the terminal to perform network handover to the candidate cell at the trigger time of the network handover; and the source base station sends the handover information to the terminal through the network equipment.

According to still another aspect of the present disclosure, a non-terrestrial network handover method is provided, including: the terminal generates measurement information, and sends the measurement information to the source base station through the network device; the source base station receives the measurement information of the terminal through the network device; the source base station according to the measurement Information to determine handover information, where the handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information, and the handover information is used to instruct the terminal to perform network handover to the candidate cell at the network handover trigger time; the source base station sends the handover information to the terminal through the network device; The terminal receives handover information from the source base station through the network device; the terminal performs configuration according to the handover information, and feeds back a successful configuration message to the source base station; the terminal judges whether the current time reaches the trigger time of network handover, and performs network handover to the candidate base station according to the judgment result. district.

According to yet another aspect of the present disclosure, a non-terrestrial network switching device is provided, including: a sending module, used for the terminal to generate measurement information, and send the measurement information to the source base station through the network device; a receiving module, used for the terminal to receive the measurement information through the network device The handover information from the source base station, the handover information is determined by the measurement information; the configuration module is used for the terminal to configure according to the handover information, where the handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information; the handover module is used for the terminal to judge the current Whether the time reaches the network handover trigger time, and the terminal performs network handover to the candidate cell according to the judgment result.

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, a non-terrestrial network switching device is provided, including: a receiving module, used for the source base station to receive measurement information of the terminal through network equipment; a determining module, used for the source base station to determine switching information according to the measurement information, The handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information, the handover information is used to instruct the terminal to perform network handover to the candidate cell at the network handover trigger time; and the sending module is used for the source base station to send the handover information to the terminal through the network device.

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided an electronic device, including: a processor; and a memory for storing executable instructions of the processor; a transceiver for communicating with other devices; wherein the processor It is configured to execute the above non-terrestrial network handover method by executing the executable instructions.

According to yet another aspect of the present disclosure, a computer-readable storage medium is provided, on which a computer program is stored, and when the computer program is executed by a processor, the above non-terrestrial network switching method is implemented.

According to yet another aspect of the present disclosure, a computer program product is provided, including a computer program, wherein, when the computer program is executed by a processor, the above-mentioned steps of the non-terrestrial network switching method are implemented.

It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the present disclosure.

Description of drawings

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments consistent with the disclosure and together with the description serve to explain the principles of the disclosure. Apparently, the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present disclosure, and those skilled in the art can obtain other drawings according to these drawings without creative efforts.

FIG. 1A shows a schematic diagram of a typical network architecture of a non-terrestrial communication system in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 1B shows a schematic diagram of a typical network architecture of a non-terrestrial communication system in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2 shows a flow chart of a non-terrestrial network handover method in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 shows a flow chart of another non-terrestrial network handover method in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 shows a flowchart of another non-terrestrial network handover method in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 shows a flow chart of another non-terrestrial network handover method in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of another non-terrestrial network handover method in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of a method for judging whether an update condition is met by a source base station according to current measurement information in the non-terrestrial network handover method shown in FIG. 6 in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 8 shows a schematic diagram of a scenario of a non-terrestrial network handover method in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 9 shows a schematic diagram of another non-terrestrial network handover method in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 10 shows a schematic diagram of signaling interaction of a non-terrestrial network handover method in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 11 shows a schematic diagram of a non-terrestrial network switching device in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 12 shows a schematic diagram of another non-terrestrial network switching device in an embodiment of the present disclosure; and

Fig. 13 shows a structural block diagram of a non-terrestrial network switching computer device in an embodiment of the present disclosure.

Detailed ways

Example embodiments will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings. Example embodiments may, however, be embodied in many forms and should not be construed as limited to the examples set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete and will fully convey the concept of example embodiments to those skilled in the art. The described features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments.

Furthermore, the drawings are merely schematic illustrations of the present disclosure and are not necessarily drawn to scale. The same reference numerals in the drawings denote the same or similar parts, and thus repeated descriptions thereof will be omitted. Some of the block diagrams shown in the drawings are functional entities and do not necessarily correspond to physically or logically separate entities. These functional entities may be implemented in software, or in one or more hardware modules or integrated circuits, or in different network and/or processor means and/or microcontroller means.

In addition, the terms "first" and "second" are used for descriptive purposes only, and cannot be interpreted as indicating or implying relative importance or implicitly specifying the quantity of indicated technical features. Thus, a feature defined as "first" and "second" may explicitly or implicitly include one or more of these features. In the description of the present disclosure, "plurality" means at least two, such as two, three, etc., unless otherwise specifically defined.

The solutions provided in the embodiments of the present application can be used in 5G systems, and can also be applied in long term evolution (long term evolution, LTE), and are specifically described through the following embodiments:

FIG. 1A is a schematic diagram of a typical network architecture of a non-terrestrial (Non-Terrestrial Networks, NTN) communication system provided by an exemplary embodiment of the present application. The system includes: several terminals 120 , a ground base station 130 , several network devices 140 , a gateway (Gateway, GW) 150 and a data network 160 .

The terminal 120 can be a mobile phone, a game console, a tablet computer, an e-book reader, smart glasses, an MP4 (Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer IV, moving picture expert compression standard audio layer 4) player, a smart home device, an AR (Augmented Reality , augmented reality) equipment, VR (Virtual Reality, virtual reality) equipment, navigation equipment, or mobile terminals such as terminals in other communication systems in the future, or terminal 120 can also be a personal computer (Personal Computer, PC), such as a laptop Laptops, desktops, and more.

The terminal 120 is connected to the network device 140 through a communication network. Optionally, the terminal 120 may communicate with the network device 140 through an air interface access network. The network device 140 can communicate with the terrestrial base station 130 or the data network 160 through the next generation network interface connection service gateway 150 . At the same time, wireless links also exist between network devices 140 to complete signaling interaction and data transmission between network devices 140 .

In some optional embodiments, the gateway 150 may be used to forward signaling and service data between the network device 140 and the ground base station 130 and the data network 160 . The gateway 150 can be a ground device installed on the ground (including on a ship or an aircraft) for satellite communication, and consists of a high-gain antenna system capable of tracking satellites, a microwave high-power transmitting system, a low-noise receiving system, and a power supply. system etc.

In some optional embodiments, different network devices 140 may be connected to the same base station 130 on the ground through gateways.

In some optional embodiments, the network device 140 may also be used to store network switching information.

Optionally, in this embodiment of the application, the network device 140 may be a satellite (such as an artificial earth satellite) that provides wireless access services for the terminal 120, and the terminal 120 transparently transmits the wireless resources of the ground base station (not shown) through the satellite. , providing reliable wireless transmission protocols and data encryption protocols, etc. Satellites can be geostationary orbit (GEO) satellites, non-stationary orbit medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites, low earth orbit (LEO) satellites, and high altitude platform (high altitude platform) satellites. station,HAPS).

In some optional embodiments, the network device 140 may also be a high-altitude aircraft (unmanned aerial vehicle system), a ship system or other non-terrestrial base stations that can serve as wireless communications, such as non-terrestrial evolved base stations and 5G base stations.

In some optional embodiments, FIG. 1B shows a schematic diagram of a typical network architecture of a non-terrestrial communication system in an embodiment of the present disclosure. The terminal device 120 can communicate with the ground base station 130 through the network device 140, wherein the network device 140 can implement transparent or regenerative payloads. The beams generated by the network equipment usually generate multiple beams in a given service area within its coverage area, and the radiation of the beams is usually elliptical.

It should be noted that the multiple network devices 140 included in the above network device 140 may belong to the same type of network device, or the above multiple network devices 140 may also belong to different types of network devices.

Those skilled in the art may know that the number of the foregoing terminals 120 and network devices 140 may be more or less. For example, there may be only one terminal and network device 140, or there may be tens or hundreds of terminals, or more. The embodiment of the present application does not limit the number and device types of the terminals 120 and network devices 140 .

Optionally, this scenario may further include a management device (not shown in FIG. 1 ), and the management device is connected to the data network 160 through a communication network. Optionally, the communication network is a wired network or a wireless network.

Optionally, the aforementioned wireless network or wired network used for the data network 160 uses standard communication technologies and/or protocols. The network is usually the Internet, but can be any network, including but not limited to Local Area Network (LAN), Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), Wide Area Network (WAN), mobile, wired or wireless network, private network, or any combination of virtual private networks). In some embodiments, data exchanged over a network is represented using technologies and/or formats including Hyper Text Mark-up Language (HTML), Extensible Markup Language (XML), and the like. In addition, you can also use such as Secure Socket Layer (Secure Socket Layer, SSL), Transport Layer Security (Transport Layer Security, TLS), Virtual Private Network (Virtual Private Network, VPN), Internet Protocol Security (Internet Protocol Security, IPsec), etc. Conventional encryption techniques to encrypt all or some links. In some other embodiments, customized and/or dedicated data communication technologies may also be used to replace or supplement the above data communication technologies.

Next, each step of the non-terrestrial network handover method in this example implementation will be described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings and embodiments.

Fig. 2 shows a flowchart of a non-terrestrial network handover method in an embodiment of the present disclosure. The method provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure may be executed by any electronic device capable of computing and processing, such as the terminal 120 in FIGS. 1A and 1B or a server cluster performing terminal functions.

In the following illustrations, the terminal is used as the execution subject for illustration.

As shown in Figure 2, the non-terrestrial network handover method provided by the embodiment of the present disclosure may include the following steps:

Step S210, the terminal generates measurement information, and sends the measurement information to the source base station through the network device.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the terminal sends information to the source base station in the form of transparent transmission through the network device.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the measurement information may include location information of the terminal, and may also include measurement results of neighboring cells. Wherein, the location information may be expressed in the form of latitude and longitude coordinates.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the neighbor cell measurement results may include the neighbor cell ID and the measured values of the reference signal received power (RSRP) and reference signal received quality (RSRQ) of the neighbor cell.

Step S220, the terminal receives handover information from the source base station through the network equipment, and the handover information is determined by the measurement information.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the terminal receives the information from the source base station in the form of transparent transmission through the network device.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the handover information is determined according to the content of the measurement information. When the measurement information includes terminal location information and neighboring cell measurement results, the handover information may include network handover trigger time related to terminal location information and candidate cell information related to neighboring cell measurement results. Wherein, the network handover trigger time instructs the terminal to perform network handover to the candidate cell.

Step S230, the terminal configures according to the handover information, and feeds back a successful configuration message to the source base station, wherein the handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the conditional switching trigger time may be in the form of a timer or in the form of an absolute value (UTC time), or may be an interval composed of an absolute value of time.

In step S240, the terminal judges whether the current time reaches the triggering time of network handover, and the terminal executes network handover to the candidate cell according to the judgment result.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the terminal reaches the network handover trigger time determined by the source base station according to the current time as the network handover trigger condition, and the terminal does not need to measure and report neighboring cell signals before the network handover trigger time is reached.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network handover execution process may include that the terminal sends synchronization and random access messages to the candidate base station through the first network device and the second network device; and then sends a handover confirmation message to the candidate base station to perform network handover to candidate districts.

Using the non-terrestrial network switching method of the present disclosure, the terminal automatically triggers network switching according to the network switching trigger time, especially when the signal quality difference between the center of the cell and the edge of the cell is small and the network switching cannot be performed through the measurement information of the channel, the network switching can be improved. The accuracy and success rate of network switching are improved. At the same time, compared with the method of network switching based on the measurement results of the signal quality of adjacent cells by the terminal, before the trigger time of network switching is reached, the terminal does not need to measure the signal quality of adjacent cells multiple times, which improves the degree of automatic network switching and reduces terminal power loss.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network device is a non-terrestrial base station with integrated base station functions and/or a non-terrestrial network device with a transparent transmission function.

For example, non-terrestrial base stations with integrated base station functions can be satellites, high-altitude aircraft (unmanned aerial systems), ship systems, or other non-terrestrial base stations that can serve as wireless communications, such as non-terrestrial evolved base stations and 5G base stations. Also for example, it may be a Beidou satellite with a transparent transmission function. Another example is some non-terrestrial network devices that do not have base station functions and only support transparent transmission functions.

Compared with the prior art, in the scenario of applying non-terrestrial base stations/non-terrestrial network equipment, this method only needs to perform network configuration and data processing functions at the source base station, and the network equipment of the present disclosure only performs transparent transmission, which can achieve low cost , Switching non-terrestrial networks with low risk can effectively improve network reliability and facilitate promotion and implementation.

Fig. 3 is a flowchart of another non-terrestrial network handover method in an embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in Figure 3, the non-terrestrial network switching method includes:

Step S310, the terminal receives beam information from the source base station through the network device.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the beam information may include a beam type, wherein the beam type may further include earth-moving and earth-fixed.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the beam information may be broadcast periodically through a System Information Block (SIB) message or a new SIB message defined. Optionally, the beam information may be broadcast periodically at SIB1. In some other embodiments, the beam information may also be added to other aperiodic broadcast SIB messages and sent to the terminal.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, after obtaining the beam information, the terminal determines whether to periodically trigger measurement reporting according to the beam type. Optionally, when the beam type is ground mobile, the terminal periodically reports measurement information. Optionally, when the beam type is ground fixed, the terminal does not need to report measurement information periodically. Through the above steps, the flexibility of the network switching method can be increased, thereby improving the accuracy and success rate of the network switching.

Step S320, if the beam information is a ground fixed beam, the terminal triggers measurement.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network device may be a satellite in geosynchronous orbit or other non-terrestrial network device that emits ground-fixed beams.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, when the beam information is a ground-fixed beam, the terminal may trigger one measurement or multiple times. Terminals can be triggered or be triggered to perform measurements on demand. The advantage of this setting is that it increases the flexibility of triggering.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, performing measurements may include measuring the location of the terminal and measuring results of neighboring cells.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, each cell covered by the network device has a corresponding identification ID, and each identification ID can be used to identify a unique cell.

By setting the steps of judging the beam type, the accuracy and success rate of network switching can be guaranteed, and the continuity of network services can be further ensured, thereby improving the quality of network services.

Step S330, the terminal generates measurement information, and sends the measurement information to the source base station through the network device.

Step S330 is similar to step S210 and will not be repeated here.

Step S340, the terminal receives handover information from the source base station through the network device.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the handover information is determined according to the content of the measurement information. When the measurement information includes terminal location information and neighboring cell measurement results, the handover information may include network handover trigger time related to terminal location information and candidate cell information related to neighboring cell measurement results. Wherein, the network handover trigger time instructs the terminal to perform network handover to the candidate cell.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the candidate cell and the source cell may be cells covered by the same network device, or may be cells covered by different network devices.

When the candidate cell and the source cell are in the same coverage area of network equipment, the source base station can determine the location of the source cell based on the location information of the terminal, the location information of the network equipment, and the orbital trajectory information of the network equipment according to the beam type being a ground fixed beam. service hours. Then, according to the service time of the source cell, the network handover trigger time for the network handover to the candidate cell is determined.

When the candidate cell and the source cell are respectively in the coverage areas of two network devices, according to the beam type being a ground fixed beam, the source base station can use the location information of the terminal, the location information of the first network device, and the orbital trajectory of the first network device The information identifies the service hours of the source cell. Then, according to the service time of the source cell, the triggering time of network handover to the candidate cell covered by the second network device is determined.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, when the network device is a satellite base station, the orbit track information of the network device is ephemeris information. In some optional embodiments, the position information of the satellite can be determined according to the ephemeris information parameters.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the location information of the network device is represented by an ECEF (Earth-Centered, Earth-Fixed, earth-centered) coordinate system.

In step S350, the terminal performs configuration according to the handover information, and feeds back a successful configuration message to the source base station.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, if the source base station does not receive the feedback message that the terminal is configured successfully, the source base station will repeatedly send handover information to the terminal, thereby guaranteeing the success rate of network handover performed by the terminal.

In step S360, the terminal judges whether the current time reaches the network switching trigger time.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, network switching is triggered if the current time is greater than or equal to the network switching trigger time.

In step S370, the terminal performs network switching according to the judgment result.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, when the candidate cell and the source cell are respectively in the coverage of two network devices, according to the ground fixed beam type scenario, the network handover execution process may include that the terminal passes the first network device and the second network device The network device sends synchronization and random access messages to the candidate base station; then sends a handover confirmation message to the candidate base station to perform network handover to the candidate cell.

Using the non-terrestrial network switching method of the present disclosure, by introducing a trigger time for network switching, it can overcome the feature that the near-far effect is not obvious in non-terrestrial network scenarios, and improve the accuracy and success rate of network switching. At the same time, compared with the method of network switching based on the measurement results of the terminal on the neighboring cells, before the trigger time of the network switching is reached, the terminal does not need to measure the signal quality of the neighboring cells multiple times, which improves the degree of automatic switching of the network and reduces the cost of the terminal. power loss.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network device is a non-terrestrial base station that transmits terrestrial fixed beams with integrated base station functions and/or a non-terrestrial network device with a transparent transmission function.

For example, non-terrestrial base stations with integrated base station functions can be satellites, high-altitude aircraft (unmanned aerial systems), ship systems, or other non-terrestrial base stations that can serve as wireless communications, such as non-terrestrial evolved base stations and 5G base stations. Also for example, it may be a Beidou satellite with a transparent transmission function.

The methods of the embodiments of the present disclosure, especially in the network scenario where non-terrestrial network devices that transmit fixed beams on the ground, only need to perform network configuration and data processing functions at the source base station, and the network devices of the present disclosure only perform transparent transmission, which can achieve low-cost Cost-effective and low-risk switching of non-terrestrial networks can effectively improve network reliability, facilitate promotion and implementation, further simplify network switching methods, and improve user experience.

Fig. 4 shows a flowchart of another non-terrestrial network handover method in an embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in Figure 4, the non-terrestrial network switching method includes:

S410, the terminal receives beam information from the source base station through the network device.

Step S410 is similar to step S310 and will not be repeated here.

S420, if the beam information is a ground mobile beam, the terminal triggers measurement in a preset period.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, after obtaining the beam information, the terminal determines whether to periodically trigger measurement reporting according to the beam type. Optionally, when the beam type is ground mobile, the terminal periodically reports measurement information. Optionally, when the beam type is ground fixed, the terminal does not need to report measurement information periodically. Through the above steps, the flexibility of the network switching method can be increased, thereby improving the accuracy and success rate of the network switching.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the preset period may be set between 10ms-80ms.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, performing the measurement may include the measurement of the terminal location and the measurement of the neighbor cell information.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, each cell covered by the network device has a corresponding identification ID, and each identification ID can be used to identify a unique cell.

S430, the terminal generates current measurement information in the current period according to a preset period, and sends the current measurement information to the source base station through the network device.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, there are two types of time status information, one is current information, which refers to messages in this period; the other is historical information, which refers to messages in a certain period before this period news.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the current measurement information may include the location information of the current terminal, and may also include the measurement results of the current neighboring cell. Wherein, the current location information may be expressed in the form of longitude and latitude coordinates.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the neighbor cell measurement results may include the neighbor cell ID and the measured values of the reference signal received power (RSRP) and reference signal received quality (RSRQ) of the neighbor cell.

S440. The terminal receives current handover information from the source base station through the network device, where the current handover information is determined by the current measurement information.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the current handover information is determined according to the content of the current measurement information. The current measurement information may include the location information of the terminal in the current period and the current neighbor cell measurement results, and the current handover information may include the current network handover trigger time related to the current terminal location information and the candidate cell information related to the current neighbor cell measurement results. Wherein, the current network handover trigger time instructs the terminal to perform network handover to the candidate cell. In some optional embodiments, if the current measurement information meets the preset update condition, the current handover information will be generated; if the current measurement information does not meet the preset update condition, the current handover information will not be generated, and the terminal will not receive the Current handover information to the current period from the source base station.

Setting preset update conditions can ensure that in the ground mobile beam type scenario, when the historical handover information becomes invalid, it can be updated immediately, thereby ensuring the validity of the current handover information, thereby ensuring the validity of the network handover configuration information, increasing the network switching reliability.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the candidate cell and the source cell may be cells covered by the same network device, or may be cells covered by different network devices.

When the candidate cell and the source cell are within the coverage of the same network equipment, according to the type of the beam is a ground mobile beam, the source base station can use the location information of the terminal in the current period, the current location information of the network equipment, and the current orbit of the network equipment The trajectory information determines the current service time of the source cell. Then, according to the current service time of the source cell, a new network handover trigger time for network handover to the candidate cell is determined.

When the candidate cell and the source cell are within the coverage of different network equipment, according to the beam type being a ground mobile beam, the source base station can base the location information of the terminal in the current period, the current location information of the first network equipment, and the first network equipment The current orbit trajectory information of the source cell determines the current service time of the source cell. Then, according to the current service time of the source cell, the current network handover trigger time of the network handover to the candidate cell covered by the second network device is determined.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, when the network device is a satellite base station, the orbit track information of the network device is ephemeris information. In some optional embodiments, the exact position of the satellite can be determined according to the ephemeris information parameters.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the location information of the network device is represented by an ECEF (Earth-Centered, Earth-Fixed, earth-centered) coordinate system.

S450, the terminal performs configuration according to the current handover information, and feeds back a configuration success message to the source base station, where the current handover message includes the current network handover trigger time and current candidate cell configuration information.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the terminal needs to reconfigure and update each time it receives handover information, so as to ensure the validity and accuracy of network handover trigger time configuration in the ground mobile beam type scenario.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, if the source base station does not receive the feedback message that the terminal configuration is successful, the source base station will repeatedly send the current handover information to the terminal, thereby providing a guarantee for the success rate of the terminal performing network handover and further improving Reliability of network switching.

S460. The terminal judges whether the current time reaches the current network switching trigger time.

Step S460 is similar to S360 in FIG. 3 , and will not be repeated here.

S470, the terminal performs network switching according to the determination result.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, in the scenario of the ground mobile beam type, the network handover execution process may include that the terminal sends synchronization and random access messages to the candidate base station through the first network device and the second network device; The base station sends a handover confirmation message to perform network handover to the candidate cell.

Using the non-terrestrial network switching method of the present disclosure, by introducing a trigger time for network switching, it can overcome the feature that the near-far effect is not obvious in non-terrestrial network scenarios, and improve the accuracy and success rate of network switching. At the same time, compared with the method of performing network handover according to the measurement result of the signal quality of the adjacent cell by the terminal, before the network handover trigger time is reached, the terminal does not need to perform multiple measurements of the signal quality of the adjacent cell, which reduces the power consumption of the terminal.

Further, if the beam type is ground mobile type, perform the above steps, and update the network handover trigger condition by reporting the current location of the terminal in real time, which can avoid the absolute error caused by the relative movement between the network equipment, the source base station and the terminal, further It can ensure the accuracy and success rate of network handover and the continuity of network services, thereby improving the quality of network services.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network device is a non-terrestrial base station that transmits ground mobile beams with integrated base station functions and/or a non-terrestrial network device with a transparent transmission function.

For example, the network equipment can be a medium-orbit satellite or a low-orbit satellite in a non-geostationary orbit, or a high-altitude communication platform or other non-terrestrial base stations that emit ground mobile beams. Therefore, the method of the embodiment of the present disclosure only needs to perform network configuration and data processing functions at the source base station, especially in the network scenario where a non-terrestrial base station that transmits mobile beams is used, and the network device of the present disclosure only performs transparent transmission, which can realize low-cost Low-cost and low-risk switching of non-terrestrial networks can effectively improve network reliability, facilitate promotion and implementation, and further improve the reliability of network switching when network devices and terminals are relatively mobile.

Fig. 5 shows a flowchart of another non-terrestrial network handover method in an embodiment of the present disclosure. The methods provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure may be executed by any type of base station. In the following illustrations, the ground source base station passes through the network device 140 as the execution subject for illustration. As shown in Figure 5, the non-terrestrial network switching method includes:

S510, the source base station receives measurement information of the terminal through a network device.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network device may be a satellite, a high-altitude aircraft (unmanned aerial vehicle system), a ship system or other non-terrestrial base stations that can serve as wireless communications, such as non-terrestrial evolved base stations and 5G base stations.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, if the beam type is ground fixed, the source base station receives the measurement information sent by the terminal through the network device; if the beam type is ground mobile, the source base station receives the measurement information sent by the terminal at a preset period information.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, each cell covered by the network device has a corresponding identification ID, and each identification ID can be used to identify a unique cell.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the measurement information may include location information of the terminal, and may also include measurement results of neighboring cells. Wherein, the location information may be expressed in the form of latitude and longitude coordinates.

S520, the source base station determines handover information according to the measurement information, where the handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information, and the handover information is used to instruct the terminal to perform network handover to the candidate cell at the network handover trigger time.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the signal measurement information may include an ID of a neighboring cell and measured values of Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) and Reference Signal Received Quality (RSRQ) of the neighboring cell.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information, and the handover information is used to instruct the terminal to perform network handover to the candidate cell at the network handover trigger time.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the source base station determines the service time of the source cell according to the terminal location information in the measurement information, the location information of the network equipment, and the orbit track information of the network equipment, and then determines the network handover trigger according to the service time of the source cell time.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network device may be a satellite base station, and the orbital track information of the network device may be ephemeris information, thereby obtaining the position information of the network device at the signal transmission time t (GPS time), including but not limited to The following methods:

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the service time T _service of the source cell is determined according to the terminal location information in the measurement information, the location information of the network equipment, and the track trajectory information of the network equipment, which can be expressed as:

为网络设备的运行速度，R为地球半径。 Among them, |D _T | is the length of the relative beam motion trajectory of the user, Z _k is the height of the network equipment,

is the operating speed of the network equipment, and R is the radius of the earth.

The network handover trigger time T _handover can be expressed as T _handover =a*T _service ; where a is a scaling factor and a∈(0,1).

S530, the source base station sends the handover information to the terminal through the network device.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, after the source base station sends the handover information to the terminal through the network device, it further includes judging whether a feedback message indicating that the terminal has successfully configured the handover information is received within a predetermined time, and if the feedback message is received, Then the source base station ends the current network handover process; if the feedback message is not received, the source base station defaults that sending the handover message fails, and resends the handover message until receiving the feedback message that the terminal configuration is successful.

Using the non-terrestrial network handover method of the present disclosure, the network handover trigger time determined by the source base station is used to assist the terminal to automatically trigger the network handover, especially when the signal quality difference between the center of the cell and the edge of the cell is not large, and the network handover cannot be performed through the measurement information of the channel In the case of network switching, the accuracy and success rate of network switching are improved.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network device is a non-terrestrial base station with integrated base station functions and/or a non-terrestrial network device with a transparent transmission function.

For example, non-terrestrial base stations with integrated base station functions can be satellites, high-altitude aircraft (unmanned aerial systems), ship systems, or other non-terrestrial base stations that can serve as wireless communications, such as non-terrestrial evolved base stations and 5G base stations. Also for example, it may be a Beidou satellite with a transparent transmission function. Another example is some non-terrestrial network devices that do not have base station functions and only support transparent transmission functions.

Compared with the prior art, in the scenario of applying non-terrestrial base stations/non-terrestrial network equipment, this method only needs to perform network configuration and data processing functions at the source base station, and the network equipment of the present disclosure only performs transparent transmission, which can achieve low cost , Switching non-terrestrial networks with low risk can effectively improve network reliability and facilitate promotion and implementation.

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of another non-terrestrial network switching method in an embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 6, the non-terrestrial network switching method includes:

S610, the source base station sends beam information to the terminal through the network device.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the source base station or network device may broadcast periodically through a System Information Block (SIB) message or define a new SIB message. Optionally, broadcast periodically at SIB1. In some other embodiments, the source base station or network equipment may also add the beam information to other aperiodic broadcast SIB messages and send them to the terminal.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the beam information may include a beam type, wherein the beam type may further include earth-moving and earth-fixed.

S620, the source base station receives the current measurement information of the terminal in the current period through the network device in a preset period.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, there are two types of time status information, one is current information, which refers to messages in this period; the other is historical information, which refers to messages in a certain period before this period news.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the preset period may be set between 10ms-80ms.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the measurement information may include terminal location information and measurement results of neighboring cells.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, each cell covered by the network device has a corresponding identification ID, and each identification ID can be used to identify a unique cell.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the neighbor cell information includes neighbor cell ID, measured values of reference signal received power (RSRP) and reference signal received quality (RSRQ) of the neighbor cell.

S630, the source base station judges whether there is historical handover information before the current period, and the historical handover information includes historical network handover trigger time and historical candidate cell configuration information.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, historical switching information is determined according to historical measurement information sent before the current period. The historical measurement information is the measurement information sent by the source base station receiving the terminal before the current period according to a preset period. The historical measurement information includes historical terminal position information of a certain period before the current period, and historical neighbor cell measurement results of a certain period before the current period.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the historical handover information may include historical candidate cell information determined by the source base station based on historical neighbor cell measurement results and historical network handover trigger time determined based on historical terminal location information.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the historical network handover trigger time may be determined by the source base station based on the cell service time determined by the terminal location information, network device location information, and network device orbit track information of a period before the current period .

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, if there is historical handover information, it is further judged whether to update the handover information; if there is no historical handover information, it is assumed that the measurement information from the terminal is received for the first time by default, and the source base station directly according to The measurement information generates handover information including a network handover trigger time, which is sent to the terminal for network handover configuration.

S640. Determine whether the current measurement information satisfies an update condition.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, if the update condition is satisfied, step S650 is performed. If the update condition is not satisfied, the latest switching information is not generated, and the current switching information is not updated.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, an update condition of switching information may be set according to current measurement information and historical switching information.

Setting preset update conditions can ensure that in the ground mobile beam type scenario, when the historical handover information becomes invalid, it can be updated immediately, thereby ensuring the validity of the current handover information, thereby ensuring the validity of the network handover configuration information, increasing the network switching reliability.

S650, the source base station determines current handover information according to the measurement information.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, when there is no historical handover message, the source base station determines the current handover information directly according to the measurement information.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, when there is a historical handover message and an update condition is satisfied, the source base station determines the current handover information according to the current measurement information to update the historical handover information. Wherein, the current handover information includes the network handover time determined according to the current measurement information and candidate cell information.

S660, the source base station sends the current handover information to the terminal through the network device.

This step is similar to step S530 in FIG. 5 and will not be repeated here.

Using the non-terrestrial network switching method of the present disclosure, by introducing a trigger time for network switching, it can overcome the feature that the near-far effect is not obvious in non-terrestrial network scenarios, and improve the accuracy and success rate of network switching. At the same time, the source base station regularly receives the real-time location of the terminal, which can update the network handover conditions in real time, avoiding the absolute error caused by the relative movement between the network equipment, the source base station and the terminal, and further ensuring the accuracy and success rate of network handover. Ensure the continuity of network services, thereby improving the quality of network services.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network device is a non-terrestrial base station with integrated base station functions and/or a non-terrestrial network device with a transparent transmission function.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, if the network device is a geosynchronous orbit satellite or other non-terrestrial base station that emits ground-fixed beams and/or a non-terrestrial network device with a transparent transmission function, the beam type in the beam information is ground Fixed type; if the network equipment is a medium-orbit satellite or a low-orbit satellite in a non-stationary orbit, or a high-altitude communication platform or other non-terrestrial base stations that emit ground mobile beams and/or non-terrestrial network equipment with transparent transmission functions, the beam information The beam type in is land mobile. This makes the disclosed method more flexible and has a wide range of application scenarios.

Furthermore, the embodiment of the present disclosure only needs to perform network configuration and data processing functions at the source base station, and the network device of the present disclosure only performs transparent transmission, which can realize low-cost and low-risk switching of non-terrestrial networks, and can effectively improve network reliability , which is convenient for popularization and implementation, and can further improve the reliability of network switching when the network device and the terminal are relatively mobile.

FIG. 7 shows a flow chart of S640 in the non-terrestrial network handover method shown in FIG. 6 in the embodiment of the present disclosure, the source base station judges whether the current measurement information satisfies the update condition. As shown in Figure 7, including:

S710, the source base station determines the current cell service time according to the current measurement information.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, there are two types of time status information, one is current information, which refers to messages in this period; the other is historical information, which refers to messages in a certain period before this period news.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the current measurement information may include current location information measured by the terminal within this period, current location information of the network device, and track track information of the network device. The source base station can determine the service time of the source cell according to the location information of the terminal, the location information of the network equipment, and the orbit track information of the network equipment, and then determine the trigger time of network handover according to the service time of the source cell. The implementation method is similar to the method for calculating the service time of the cell in S520 in FIG. 5 , and will not be repeated here.

S720, the source base station judges whether the absolute difference between the current cell service time and the historical network handover trigger time exceeds an update threshold.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the historical network handover trigger time is determined according to historical measurement information.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the update threshold is determined by the source base station according to the configuration of the network device, and the update threshold can be changed or fixed. Furthermore, the personalized customization of the switching information update mode by the network equipment is realized, the flexibility of data update is improved, and the requirements of different network equipment are satisfied.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, when the current cell service time determined by the source base station according to the current measurement information is less than the historical network trigger time, the absolute value of the difference between the two is taken.

S730, if the absolute difference exceeds the update threshold, the update condition is satisfied.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, when the absolute difference is greater than the update threshold, the update condition is met, and the source base station determines the current handover information according to the current measurement information, where the current handover information includes the current cell service time, the current network handover trigger time and current candidate cell information. When the absolute difference is less than or equal to the update threshold, no new current handover information is generated according to the current measurement message, and the handover information is not updated.

By setting the above update conditions, the source base station can update the location information of the terminal and network equipment in real time, thereby updating the network switching time in real time, improving the accuracy and success rate of network switching in the ground mobile beam type scenario, and further ensuring the network Service continuity improves network service quality.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network device is a non-terrestrial base station with integrated base station functions and/or a non-terrestrial network device with a transparent transmission function. Further, the method of the embodiment of the present disclosure only needs to perform network configuration and data processing functions at the source base station, and the network device of the present disclosure only performs transparent transmission, which can realize low-cost and low-risk switching of non-terrestrial networks, and can effectively improve network reliability , which is convenient for promotion and implementation, further simplifies the network switching method, and improves user experience.

Fig. 8 shows a schematic diagram of a scenario of a non-terrestrial network handover method in an embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 8, in some embodiments of the present disclosure, the terminal 820 performs non-terrestrial network handover within the network coverage of the same network device 840. Each cell corresponding to the network device has a corresponding identifier, and each identifier can It is used to uniquely identify the cell covered by the network device. The terminal 820 implements network handover from the source cell 810 to the candidate cell 811 through scheduling by the same network device 840 . Among them, the network equipment can be a non-terrestrial base station with an integrated base station function that emits fixed beams on the ground and/or a non-terrestrial network equipment with a transparent transmission function. For example, the network equipment can be a satellite, a high-altitude aircraft (UAV system), a ship system Or other non-terrestrial base stations that can be used as wireless communication, such as non-terrestrial evolved base stations and 5G base stations, or non-terrestrial network devices that only have transparent transmission functions but do not have base station functions

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the method for the terminal 820 to perform network handover within the coverage of the network device 840 may include: the terminal 820 receives beam information from the source base station 830 through the network device 840 . When the beam information is of the ground fixed type, the terminal 820 triggers the position measurement and the measurement results of the adjacent cells to generate measurement information, and sends the measurement information to the source base station 830 through the network device 840 . The source base station determines handover information through the measurement information, and the handover information includes network handover time and configuration information of the candidate cell 811 . The terminal 820 receives handover information from the source base station 830 through the network device 840 . The terminal 820 performs configuration according to the handover information, and feeds back a configuration success message to the source base station 830 . The terminal 820 judges whether the current time reaches the network switching trigger time, and if the current time reaches the network switching trigger time, the terminal performs network switching to the candidate cell 811 .

In some embodiments, when the beam information is ground mobile, the terminal 820 triggers position measurement and neighbor cell measurement to generate current measurement information at a preset period, and sends the current measurement information to the source base station 830 through the network device 840 . Among them, the current information refers to the news in this period; the opposite is the historical information, which refers to the news in a certain period before the current period. The source base station judges whether there is historical handover information, if there is no historical handover information, then determines the current handover information through the current measurement information, the current handover information includes the current network handover time and the current candidate cell 811, and sends the current handover information to the Terminal 820; if there is historical measurement information, the source base station judges whether the update condition is satisfied according to the current measurement information, and if the update condition is satisfied, the source base station determines the current handover information through the current measurement information to update the handover information, the current handover information includes the current network The switching time and the current candidate cell 811, and the current switching information is sent to the terminal 820 through the network equipment.

In the above scenario, the source base station realizes the seamless network handover of the terminal in the edge area of the cell covered by the same network equipment by scheduling the cells covered by the network equipment, so as to improve the success rate and accuracy of network handover, thereby improving the continuity of network services and improve network service quality.

FIG. 9 shows a schematic diagram of another non-terrestrial network handover method in an embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 9, in some embodiments of the present disclosure, the terminal 920 performs network handover from the source cell 910 covered by the network device 940 to the source cell 911 covered by the network device 941, and each cell corresponding to each network device has Corresponding identifiers, each identifier can be used to uniquely identify a cell covered by the network device. Among them, the network equipment can be a non-terrestrial base station with an integrated base station function that emits fixed beams on the ground and/or a non-terrestrial network equipment with a transparent transmission function. For example, the network equipment can be a satellite, a high-altitude aircraft (UAV system), a ship system Or other non-terrestrial base stations that can be used as wireless communication, such as non-terrestrial evolved base stations and 5G base stations, or non-terrestrial network devices that only have transparent transmission functions but do not have base station functions

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the method for the terminal 920 to perform network handover within the coverage of the network device 940 may include: the terminal 920 receives beam information from the source base station 930 through the network device 940 . When the beam information is of the ground fixed type, the terminal 920 triggers location measurement and measurement of adjacent cells to generate measurement information, and sends the measurement information to the source base station 930 through the network device 940 . The source base station determines handover information through measurement information, and the handover information includes network handover time and candidate cell 911 configuration information. The terminal 920 receives handover information from the source base station 930 through the network device 940 . The terminal 920 performs configuration according to the handover information, and feeds back a successful configuration message to the source base station 930, where the handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information. The terminal 920 judges whether the current time reaches the network switching trigger time, and if the current time reaches the network switching trigger time, the terminal executes network switching to the candidate cell 911 .

In some embodiments, when the beam information is ground mobile, the terminal 920 triggers position measurement and neighbor cell measurement to generate current measurement information at a preset period, and sends the current measurement information to the source base station 930 through the network device 940 . Among them, the current information refers to the news in this period; the opposite is the historical information, which refers to the news in a certain period before the current period. The source base station judges whether there is historical handover information. If there is no historical handover information, the source base station determines the current handover information through the current measurement information. The current handover information includes the current network handover time and the configuration information of the current candidate cell 911 covered by the candidate network device 941 , and send the current switching information to the terminal 920 through the network device. If there is historical handover information, the source base station judges whether the update condition is satisfied according to the current measurement information. If the update condition is met, the source base station determines the current handover information through the current measurement information to update the handover information. The current handover information includes the current network handover time and The current candidate cell, and the current switching information is sent to the terminal 820 through the network device.

In some embodiments, the network handover execution process may include that the terminal 920 sends synchronization and random access messages to the candidate base station 931 through the first network device 940 and the second network device 941; and then sends a handover confirmation message to the candidate base station 931 to perform The network switches to the candidate cell.

In the above scenario, the source base station realizes the seamless network handover of the terminal in the edge area of the cell covered by the two network equipments by scheduling network equipment, so as to improve the success rate and accuracy of network handover, thereby improving the continuity of network services. Improve network service quality.

In particular, the methods of the embodiments of the present disclosure help to simplify the way in which a terminal performs network handover between cells covered by different non-terrestrial network devices, so as to improve network service quality and user experience.

Fig. 10 shows a schematic diagram of signaling interaction of a non-terrestrial network handover method in an embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in Figure 10, the signaling interaction of the non-terrestrial network handover method provided in this embodiment may include the following steps:

S1010. The terminal generates measurement information, and sends the measurement information to the network device.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network device is a non-terrestrial base station with integrated base station functions and/or a non-terrestrial network device with a transparent transmission function. For example, network equipment can be satellites, high-altitude aircraft (unmanned aerial vehicle systems), ship systems, or other non-terrestrial base stations that can be used as wireless communication, such as non-terrestrial evolved base stations and 5G base stations, etc., or only have transparent transmission functions and do not have base station functions. non-terrestrial network equipment.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the terminal sends the measurement information including the location of the terminal and the measurement results of neighboring cells to the network device through a measurement report (Measurement Report) message.

S1020, the network device sends the measurement information to the source base station.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network device transparently transmits the measurement report from the terminal to the source base station.

S1030, the source base station determines handover information according to the measurement information, where the handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information, and the handover information is used to instruct the terminal to perform network handover to the candidate cell at the network handover trigger time.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the source base station determines the service time of the cell according to the location information of the terminal, the location information of the network equipment, and the track track information of the network equipment, and then determines the network switching time according to the service time of the cell.

In some other embodiments of the present disclosure, the source base station receives measurement information at a preset period, so as to generate new current handover information and update historical handover information. In some optional embodiments, the source base station may set update conditions to determine whether to generate current handover information to update historical handover information. When the received current measurement information satisfies the update condition, the current handover information is generated to update the historical handover information.

S1040, the source base station sends handover information to the network device.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the source base station may also send a handover request to the candidate base station, so as to ensure robustness of non-terrestrial network handover. Optionally, the candidate base station sends a handover confirmation to the source base station as a response.

S1050, the network device sends switching information to the terminal.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network device transparently transmits the handover information from the source base station to the terminal.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network device sends the switching information to the terminal through a radio resource connection (Radio Resource Control, RRC) message.

S1060. The terminal performs configuration according to the switching information.

S1070. The terminal sends a configuration success message to the network device.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, after the terminal is successfully configured, the terminal sends a configuration completion signaling to the source base station through the network device.

S1080, the network device sends the configuration success message to the source base station.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network device transparently transmits the configuration success message to the source base station.

S1090, the terminal judges whether the current time reaches the trigger time of the network handover, and the terminal executes the network handover to the candidate cell according to the judgment result.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, when the terminal judges that the current time reaches the network handover trigger, the terminal sends a handover request (Handover Request) signaling to the candidate cell to perform the handover.

Using the non-terrestrial network switching method of the present disclosure, by introducing a trigger time for network switching, it can overcome the feature that the near-far effect is not obvious in non-terrestrial network scenarios, and improve the accuracy and success rate of network switching. At the same time, compared with the method of performing network handover based on the measurement results of the terminal on neighboring cells, before the trigger time of network switching is reached, the terminal does not need to perform multiple measurement reports on neighboring cells, which reduces the signaling overhead of the terminal and further improves the The degree of automatic switching of the network reduces the power loss of the terminal. Furthermore, in the scenario where a non-terrestrial base station is used, compared with the prior art, only the source base station needs to perform network configuration and data processing functions when performing non-terrestrial network handover, and the network device of the present disclosure performs transparent transmission , can achieve low-cost, low-risk switching of non-terrestrial networks, can effectively improve network reliability, and facilitate promotion and implementation.

It should be noted that the above-mentioned figures are only schematic illustrations of the processing included in the method according to the exemplary embodiment of the present invention, and are not intended to be limiting. It is easy to understand that the processes shown in the above figures do not imply or limit the chronological order of these processes. In addition, it is also easy to understand that these processes may be executed synchronously or asynchronously in multiple modules, for example.

FIG. 11 shows a structural block diagram of a non-terrestrial network switching device in an embodiment of the present disclosure; as shown in FIG. 11 , the non-terrestrial network switching device 1100 provided in this embodiment includes the following modules, including:

The sending module 1120 is used for the terminal to generate measurement information, and send the measurement information to the source base station through the network equipment; the receiving module 1140 is used for the terminal to receive handover information from the source base station through the network equipment, and the handover information is determined by the measurement information The configuration module 1160 is used for the terminal to configure according to the handover information, wherein the handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information; the handover module 1180 is used for the terminal to judge whether the current time reaches the network handover trigger time, and the terminal according to the judgment result Perform network handover to the candidate cell.

In the above device, network switching is triggered by using the trigger time of network switching, especially when the signal quality difference between the center of the cell and the edge of the cell is not large and the network switching cannot be performed through the measurement information of the channel, the accuracy of network switching is improved. sex and success. At the same time, compared with the method of performing network handover according to the measurement result of the signal quality of the adjacent cell by the terminal, before the network handover trigger time is reached, the terminal does not need to perform multiple measurements of the signal quality of the adjacent cell, which reduces the power consumption of the terminal.

FIG. 12 shows a structural block diagram of another non-terrestrial network switching device 1200 in an embodiment of the present disclosure; as shown in FIG. 12 , the non-terrestrial network switching device 1200 provided in this embodiment includes the following modules, including:

The receiving module 1210 is used for the source base station to receive the measurement information of the terminal through the network equipment; the determining module 1220 is used for the source base station to determine handover information according to the measurement information, wherein the handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information, and is used for handover information To instruct the terminal to perform network handover to the candidate cell at the trigger time of the network handover; the sending module 1230 is used for the source base station to send handover information to the terminal through the network equipment.

In the above device, the network switching trigger time determined by the source base station is used to assist the terminal to automatically trigger network switching, especially when the signal quality difference between the cell center and the cell edge is not large and the network switching cannot be performed by channel measurement information, improving The accuracy and success rate of network switching are improved.

Those skilled in the art can understand that various aspects of the present invention can be implemented as systems, methods or program products. Therefore, various aspects of the present invention can be embodied in the following forms, that is: a complete hardware implementation, a complete software implementation (including firmware, microcode, etc.), or a combination of hardware and software implementations, which can be collectively referred to herein as "circuit", "module" or "system".

For the specific implementation of each module in the device provided by the embodiment of the present disclosure, reference may be made to the content in the above method, and details are not repeated here.

An electronic device 1300 according to this embodiment of the present invention is described below with reference to FIG. 13 . The electronic device 1300 shown in FIG. 13 is only an example, and should not limit the functions and scope of use of this embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 13, electronic device 1300 takes the form of a general-purpose computing device. The components of the electronic device 1300 may include, but are not limited to: the above-mentioned at least one processing unit 1310, the above-mentioned at least one storage unit 1320, at least one transceiver 1370 for communicating with other devices, connecting different system components (including the storage unit 1320 and the processing unit) 1310) of the bus 1330.

Wherein, the storage unit stores program codes, and the program codes can be executed by the processing unit 1310, so that the processing unit 1310 executes various exemplary methods according to the present invention described in the "Exemplary Methods" section of this specification. Implementation steps. For example, the processing unit 1310 may execute the non-terrestrial network handover method 200 as shown in FIG. The handover information of the source base station, the handover information is determined by the measurement information; S230, the terminal configures according to the handover information, and feeds back the configuration success message to the source base station, wherein the handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information; S240, The terminal judges whether the current time reaches the network handover trigger time, and the terminal performs network handover to the candidate cell according to the judgment result.

The storage unit 1320 may include a readable medium in the form of a volatile storage unit, such as a random access storage unit (RAM) 1321 and/or a cache storage unit 1322 , and may further include a read-only storage unit (ROM) 1323 .

Storage unit 1320 may also include programs/utilities 1324 having a set (at least one) of program modules 1325, such program modules 1325 including but not limited to: an operating system, one or more application programs, other program modules, and program data, Implementations of networked environments may be included in each or some combination of these examples.

Bus 1330 may represent one or more of several types of bus structures, including a memory cell bus or memory cell controller, a peripheral bus, an accelerated graphics port, a processing unit, or a local area using any of a variety of bus structures. bus.

The electronic device 1300 may also communicate with one or more external devices (such as keyboards, pointing devices, Bluetooth devices, etc.), and may also communicate with one or more devices that enable the user to interact with the electronic device, and/or communicate with the device that enables the user to interact with the electronic device. Electronic device 1300 is capable of communicating with any device (eg, router, modem, etc.) that communicates with one or more other computing devices. Such communication may occur through input/output (I/O) interface 1350 . Moreover, the electronic device 1300 can also communicate with one or more networks (such as a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN) and/or a public network such as the Internet) through the network adapter 1360 . As shown, network adapter 1360 communicates with other modules of the electronic device via bus 1330 . It should be appreciated that although not shown, other hardware and/or software modules may be used in conjunction with electronic device 1300, including but not limited to: microcode, device drivers, redundant processing units, external disk drive arrays, RAID systems, tape drives And data backup storage system, etc.

An embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a computer program product, which implements the steps of the non-terrestrial network switching method in any of the above method embodiments when the computer program product is executed by a computer.

Through the description of the above implementations, those skilled in the art can easily understand that the example implementations described here can be implemented by software, or by combining software with necessary hardware. Therefore, the technical solutions according to the embodiments of the present disclosure can be embodied in the form of software products, and the software products can be stored in a non-volatile storage medium (which can be CD-ROM, U disk, mobile hard disk, etc.) or on the network , including several instructions to make a computing device (which may be a personal computer, a server, a terminal device, or a network device, etc.) execute the method according to the embodiments of the present disclosure.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, there is also provided a computer-readable storage medium on which a program product capable of implementing the above-mentioned method in this specification is stored. In some possible implementations, various aspects of the present invention can also be implemented in the form of a program product, which includes program code, and when the program product is run on a terminal device, the program code is used to make the The terminal device executes the steps according to various exemplary embodiments of the present invention described in the "Exemplary Method" section above in this specification.

According to the program product for implementing the above method according to the embodiment of the present invention, it may adopt a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM) and include program codes, and may run on a terminal device such as a personal computer. However, the program product of the present invention is not limited thereto. In this document, a readable storage medium may be any tangible medium containing or storing a program, and the program may be used by or in combination with an instruction execution system, apparatus or device.

The program product may reside on any combination of one or more readable media. The readable medium may be a readable signal medium or a readable storage medium. The readable storage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electrical, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, device, or device, or any combination thereof. More specific examples (non-exhaustive list) of readable storage media include: electrical connection with one or more conductors, portable disk, hard disk, random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or flash memory), optical fiber, portable compact disk read-only memory (CD-ROM), optical storage devices, magnetic storage devices, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

A computer readable signal medium may include a data signal carrying readable program code in baseband or as part of a carrier wave. Such propagated data signals may take many forms, including but not limited to electromagnetic signals, optical signals, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. A readable signal medium may also be any readable medium other than a readable storage medium that can transmit, propagate, or transport a program for use by or in conjunction with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

Program code embodied on a readable medium may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc., or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

Program code for carrying out the operations of the present invention may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including object-oriented programming languages—such as Java, C++, etc., as well as conventional procedural programming languages. Programming language - such as "C" or a similar programming language. The program code may execute entirely on the user's computing device, partly on the user's device, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computing device and partly on a remote computing device, or entirely on the remote computing device or server to execute. In cases involving a remote computing device, the remote computing device may be connected to the user computing device through any kind of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or may be connected to an external computing device (e.g., using an Internet service provider). business to connect via the Internet).

It should be noted that although several modules or units of the device for action execution are mentioned in the above detailed description, this division is not mandatory. Actually, according to the embodiment of the present disclosure, the features and functions of two or more modules or units described above may be embodied in one module or unit. Conversely, the features and functions of one module or unit described above can be further divided to be embodied by a plurality of modules or units.

In addition, although steps of the methods of the present disclosure are depicted in the drawings in a particular order, there is no requirement or implication that the steps must be performed in that particular order, or that all illustrated steps must be performed to achieve the desired result. Additionally or alternatively, certain steps may be omitted, multiple steps may be combined into one step for execution, and/or one step may be decomposed into multiple steps for execution, etc.

Through the description of the above implementations, those skilled in the art can easily understand that the example implementations described here can be implemented by software, or by combining software with necessary hardware. Therefore, the technical solutions according to the embodiments of the present disclosure can be embodied in the form of software products, and the software products can be stored in a non-volatile storage medium (which can be CD-ROM, U disk, mobile hard disk, etc.) or on the network , including several instructions to make a computing device (which may be a personal computer, a server, a mobile terminal, or a network device, etc.) execute the method according to the embodiments of the present disclosure.

Other embodiments of the present disclosure will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the specification and practice of the invention disclosed herein. This application is intended to cover any modification, use or adaptation of the present disclosure, and these modifications, uses or adaptations follow the general principles of the present disclosure and include common knowledge or conventional technical means in the technical field not disclosed in the present disclosure . The specification and examples are to be considered exemplary only, with the true scope and spirit of the disclosure indicated by the appended claims.

Claims (22)

A non-terrestrial network switching method, including: The terminal generates measurement information, and sends the measurement information to the source base station through the network device; The terminal receives handover information from the source base station through the network device, where the handover information is determined by the measurement information; The terminal performs configuration according to the handover information, and feeds back a successful configuration message to the source base station, where the handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information; and The terminal judges whether the current time reaches the network handover trigger time, and the terminal performs network handover to the candidate cell according to the judgment result. The non-terrestrial network handover method according to claim 1, wherein the measurement information further includes: the measurement result of the terminal on neighboring cells and the location information of the terminal. The non-terrestrial network handover method according to claim 2, wherein before the terminal generates the measurement information, it includes: The terminal receives beam information from the source base station through the network device; and The terminal triggers measurement according to the beam information. The non-terrestrial network handover method according to claim 3, wherein the terminal triggering measurement according to the beam information further comprises: If the beam information is a ground fixed beam, the terminal triggers measurement; If the beam information is a ground mobile beam, the terminal triggers measurement at a preset period. The non-terrestrial network handover method according to claim 4, wherein the terminal generates measurement information, and sends the measurement information to the source base station through the network device, comprising: The terminal generates the current measurement information in the current period according to a preset period, and sends the current measurement information to the source base station through the network device. The non-terrestrial network handover method according to claim 5, wherein the terminal receives handover information from the source base station through the network device, and the handover information is determined by the measurement information, including: The terminal receives current handover information from the source base station through the network device, where the current handover information is determined by the current measurement information. The non-terrestrial network handover method according to claim 6, wherein the terminal performs configuration according to the handover information, and feeds back a successful configuration message to the source base station, wherein the handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate Cell configuration information includes: The terminal performs configuration according to the current handover information, and feeds back a successful configuration message to the source base station, where the current handover information includes current network handover trigger time and current candidate cell configuration information. The non-terrestrial network switching method according to any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein the network device is a non-terrestrial base station with integrated base station functions and/or a non-terrestrial network device with a transparent transmission function. A non-terrestrial network switching method, including: The source base station receives the measurement information of the terminal through the network device; The source base station determines handover information according to the measurement information, where the handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information, and the handover information is used to instruct the terminal to perform network handover at the network handover trigger time to a candidate cell; and The source base station sends the switching information to the terminal through the network device. The non-terrestrial network handover method according to claim 9, wherein the measurement information further includes: the measurement result of the terminal on neighboring cells and the location information of the terminal. The non-terrestrial network handover method according to claim 10, wherein, before the source base station receives the measurement information of the terminal through the network equipment, it further includes: The source base station sends beam information to the terminal through the network device. The non-terrestrial network handover method according to claim 11, wherein the source base station receiving the measurement information of the terminal through the network device further comprises: The source base station receives the current measurement information of the terminal in the current period through the network device at a preset period. The non-terrestrial network handover method according to claim 12, wherein the source base station determines handover information according to the measurement information, including: The source base station judges whether there is historical handover information before the current cycle, and the historical handover message includes historical network handover trigger time and historical candidate cell configuration information; If the historical handover information does not exist, the source base station determines current handover information according to the current measurement information; and If the historical handover information exists, the source base station judges whether the current measurement information meets an update condition, and if the update condition is met, the source base station determines the current handover information according to the current measurement information. The non-terrestrial network handover method according to claim 13, wherein the source base station determines handover information according to measurement information, comprising: The source base station determines the cell service time of the terminal according to the location information of the terminal; and The source base station determines the network handover trigger time according to the cell service time. The non-terrestrial network handover method according to claim 14, wherein the source base station judging whether the current measurement information satisfies an update condition includes: The source base station determines the current cell service time according to the current measurement information; The source base station determines whether the absolute difference between the current cell service time and the historical network handover trigger time exceeds an update threshold; and If the update threshold is exceeded, the update condition is met. The non-terrestrial network switching method according to any one of claims 9 to 15, wherein the network device is a non-terrestrial base station with integrated base station functions and/or a non-terrestrial network device with a transparent transmission function. A non-terrestrial network switching method, including: The terminal generates measurement information, and sends the measurement information to the source base station through the network device; The source base station receives the measurement information of the terminal through the network device; The source base station determines handover information according to the measurement information, where the handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information, and the handover information is used to instruct the terminal to perform network handover at the network handover trigger time to the candidate cell; The source base station sends the switching information to the terminal through the network device; The terminal receives handover information from the source base station through the network device; The terminal performs configuration according to the handover information, and feeds back a successful configuration message to the source base station; and The terminal judges whether the current time reaches the network handover trigger time, and the terminal performs network handover to the candidate cell according to the judgment result. A non-terrestrial network switching device, including: A sending module, configured for the terminal to generate measurement information, and send the measurement information to the source base station through the network device; a receiving module, configured for the terminal to receive handover information from the source base station through the network device, where the handover information is determined by the measurement information; A configuration module, configured for the terminal to configure according to the handover information, where the handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information; and The handover module is used for the terminal to judge whether the current time reaches the trigger time of the network handover, and the terminal performs network handover to the candidate cell according to the judgment result. A non-terrestrial network switching device, including: a receiving module, configured for the source base station to receive measurement information of the terminal through the network device; A determining module, configured for the source base station to determine handover information according to the measurement information, where the handover information includes network handover trigger time and candidate cell configuration information, and the handover information is used to instruct the terminal to handover in the network Triggering time to perform a network handover to a candidate cell; and A sending module, configured for the source base station to send the handover information to the terminal through the network device. An electronic device, comprising: processor; a memory for storing executable instructions of the processor; and Transceivers, used to communicate with other devices; Wherein, the processor is configured to execute the non-terrestrial network handover method described in any one of claims 1-8, or execute the method described in any one of claims 9-16 by executing the executable instructions. Non-terrestrial network handover method. A computer-readable storage medium, on which a computer program is stored, wherein, when the computer program is executed by a processor, the non-terrestrial network switching method according to any one of claims 1-8 is implemented, or the non-terrestrial network switching method according to claim 1 is implemented. The non-terrestrial network switching method described in any one of 9-16. A computer program product, including a computer program, characterized in that, when the computer program is executed by a processor, the steps of the non-terrestrial network switching method according to any one of claims 1-8 or 9-16 are implemented.

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