WO2024065369A1

WO2024065369A1 - Conditional skipping of measurements

Info

Publication number: WO2024065369A1
Application number: PCT/CN2022/122487
Authority: WO
Inventors: Muneender Chiranji; Srinivasan Selvaganapathy; Mads LAURIDSEN; Ayaz AHMED; Ping Yuan; Jeroen Wigard
Original assignee: Nokia Shanghai Bell Co Ltd; Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy; Nokia Technologies Oy
Current assignee: Nokia Shanghai Bell Co Ltd; Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy; Nokia Technologies Oy
Priority date: 2022-09-29
Filing date: 2022-09-29
Publication date: 2024-04-04
Anticipated expiration: 2025-03-29
Also published as: MX2025003599A; CN119968881A; EP4595513A1; JP2025533616A; KR20250075679A

Abstract

Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to devices, methods, apparatuses and computer readable storage media for conditional skipping of measurements. A first device first determines that a first condition to perform a measurement is met. In this case, if a second condition to skip the measurement is met, the first device skips the measurement. As such, radio measurements can be performed conditionally so as to save power for the first device.

Description

CONDITIONAL SKIPPING OF MEASUREMENTS

FIELDS

Various example embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to the field of telecommunication and in particular, to methods, devices, apparatuses and computer readable storage medium for conditional skipping of measurements.

BACKGROUND

In release (Rel) 17, mobility solutions for support of New Radio (NR) over Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) is developed in 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) . A key solution is enhancement of conditional handover (CHO) , which is now expected to be adopted to enhanced Machine-Type Communication (eMTC) . CHO may be configured by configuring A3/A4/A5 radio measurements along with Time/Location based events. For example, whenever the Time/Location event is triggered, user equipment (UE) needs to measure A3/A4/A5 as configured before executing CHO to a target cell. CHO can be initiated by the without awaiting a radio resource control (RRC) Reconfiguration command from a serving cell, because such command is received at an earlier point in time. However, for eMTC devices or any other power limited devices which are power limited and mostly stationary and when accessing an NTN cell, there might not be a need to measure always.

SUMMARY

In a first aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a first device. The first device comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first device at least to perform: determining that a first condition to perform a measurement is met; and in accordance with a determination that a second condition to skip the measurement is met, skipping the measurement.

In a second aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a second device. The second device comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the second device at least to perform: determining that skipping of a measurement is enabled for a first device; and transmitting, to the first device, an indication that the skipping of the measurement is enabled.

In a third aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: at a first device, determining that a first condition to perform a measurement is met; and in accordance with a determination that a second condition to skip the measurement is met, skipping the measurement.

In a fourth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided another method. The method comprises: at a second device, determining that skipping of a measurement is enabled for a first device; and transmitting, to the first device, an indication that the skipping of the measurement is enabled.

In a fifth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a first apparatus. The first apparatus comprises means for determining that a first condition to perform a measurement is met; and means for in accordance with a determination that a second condition to skip the measurement is met, skipping the measurement.

In a sixth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a second apparatus. The second apparatus comprises means for determining that skipping of a measurement is enabled for a first device; and means for transmitting, to the first device, an indication that the skipping of the measurement is enabled.

In a seventh aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium comprises instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus to perform at least the method according to the third aspect.

In an eighth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium comprises instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus to perform at least the method according to the fourth aspect.

It is to be understood that the Summary section is not intended to identify key or essential features of embodiments of the present disclosure, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the present disclosure. Other features of the present disclosure will become easily comprehensible through the following description.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Some example embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, where:

FIG. 1 illustrates an example communication environment in which example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented;

FIG. 2 illustrates an example signaling diagram of a measurement process according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at a first device according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at a second device according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 illustrates an example signaling diagram of a success case of handover according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 6 illustrates an example signaling diagram of a failure case of handover according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 7 illustrates an example UE state diagram according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 8 illustrates a simplified block diagram of a device that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure; and

FIG. 9 illustrates a block diagram of an example computer readable medium in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Throughout the drawings, the same or similar reference numerals represent the same or similar element.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Principle of the present disclosure will now be described with reference to some example embodiments. It is to be understood that these embodiments are described only for the purpose of illustration and help those skilled in the art to understand and implement the present disclosure, without suggesting any limitation as to the scope of the disclosure. Embodiments described herein can be implemented in various manners other than the ones described below.

In the following description and claims, unless defined otherwise, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skills in the art to which this disclosure belongs.

References in the present disclosure to “one embodiment, ” “an embodiment, ” “an example embodiment, ” and the like indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but it is not necessary that every embodiment includes the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover, such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment. Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an embodiment, it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to affect such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodiments whether or not explicitly described.

It shall be understood that although the terms “first, ” “second” and the like may be used herein to describe various elements, these elements should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element from another. For example, a first element could be termed a second element, and similarly, a second element could be termed a first element, without departing from the scope of example embodiments. As used herein, the term “and/or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the listed terms.

As used herein, “at least one of the following: <a list of two or more elements>” and “at least one of <a list of two or more elements>” and similar wording, where the list of two or more elements are joined by “and” or “or” , mean at least any one of the elements, or at least any two or more of the elements, or at least all the elements.

As used herein, unless stated explicitly, performing a step “in response to A” does not indicate that the step is performed immediately after “A” occurs and one or more intervening steps may be included.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of example embodiments. As used herein, the singular forms “a” , “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises” , “comprising” , “has” , “having” , “includes” and/or “including” , when used herein, specify the presence of stated features, elements, and/or components etc., but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, elements, components and/or combinations thereof.

As used in this application, the term “circuitry” may refer to one or more or all of the following:

(a) hardware-only circuit implementations (such as implementations in only analog and/or digital circuitry) and

(b) combinations of hardware circuits and software, such as (as applicable) :

(i) a combination of analog and/or digital hardware circuit (s) with software/firmware and

(ii) any portions of hardware processor (s) with software (including digital signal processor (s) ) , software, and memory (ies) that work together to cause an apparatus, such as a mobile phone or server, to perform various functions) and

(c) hardware circuit (s) and or processor (s) , such as a microprocessor (s) or a portion of a microprocessor (s) , that requires software (e.g., firmware) for operation, but the software may not be present when it is not needed for operation.

This definition of circuitry applies to all uses of this term in this application, including in any claims. As a further example, as used in this application, the term circuitry also covers an implementation of merely a hardware circuit or processor (or multiple processors) or portion of a hardware circuit or processor and its (or their) accompanying software and/or firmware. The term circuitry also covers, for example and if applicable to the particular claim element, a baseband integrated circuit or processor integrated circuit for a mobile device or a similar integrated circuit in server, a cellular network device, or other computing or network device.

As used herein, the term “communication network” refers to a network following any suitable communication standards, such as New Radio (NR) , Long Term Evolution (LTE) , LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) , Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) , High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) , Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) and so on. Furthermore, the communications between a terminal device and a network device in the communication network may be performed according to any suitable generation communication protocols, including, but not limited to, the first generation (1G) , the second generation (2G) , 2.5G, 2.75G, the third generation (3G) , the fourth generation (4G) , 4.5G, the fifth generation (5G) communication protocols, and/or any other protocols either currently known or to be developed in the future. Embodiments of the present disclosure may be applied in various communication systems. Given the rapid development in communications, there will of course also be future type communication technologies and systems with which the present disclosure may be embodied. It should not be seen as limiting the scope of the present disclosure to only the aforementioned system.

As used herein, the term “network device” refers to a node in a communication network via which a terminal device accesses the network and receives services therefrom. The network device may refer to a base station (BS) or an access point (AP) , for example, a node B (NodeB or NB) , an evolved NodeB (eNodeB or eNB) , an NR NB (also referred to as a gNB) , a Remote Radio Unit (RRU) , a radio header (RH) , a remote radio head (RRH) , a relay, an Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) node, a low power node such as a femto, a pico, a non-terrestrial network (NTN) or non-ground network device such as a satellite network device, a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite and a geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) satellite, an aircraft network device, and so forth, depending on the applied terminology and technology. In some example embodiments, radio access network (RAN) split architecture comprises a Centralized Unit (CU) and a Distributed Unit (DU) at an IAB donor node. An IAB node comprises a Mobile Terminal (IAB-MT) part that behaves like a UE toward the parent node, and a DU part of an IAB node behaves like a base station toward the next-hop IAB node.

The term “terminal device” refers to any end device that may be capable of wireless communication. By way of example rather than limitation, a terminal device may also be referred to as a communication device, user equipment (UE) , a Subscriber Station (SS) , a Portable Subscriber Station, a Mobile Station (MS) , or an Access Terminal (AT) . The terminal device may include, but not limited to, a mobile phone, a cellular phone, a smart phone, voice over IP (VoIP) phones, wireless local loop phones, a tablet, a wearable terminal device, a personal digital assistant (PDA) , portable computers, desktop computer, image capture terminal devices such as digital cameras, gaming terminal devices, music storage and playback appliances, vehicle-mounted wireless terminal devices, wireless endpoints, mobile stations, laptop-embedded equipment (LEE) , laptop-mounted equipment (LME) , USB dongles, smart devices, wireless customer-premises equipment (CPE) , an Internet of Things (loT) device, a watch or other wearable, a head-mounted display (HMD) , a vehicle, a drone, a medical device and applications (e.g., remote surgery) , an industrial device and applications (e.g., a robot and/or other wireless devices operating in an industrial and/or an automated processing chain contexts) , a consumer electronics device, a device operating on commercial and/or industrial wireless networks, and the like. The terminal device may also correspond to a Mobile Termination (MT) part of an IAB node (e.g., a relay node) . In the following description, the terms “terminal device” , “communication device” , “terminal” , “user equipment” and “UE” may be used interchangeably.

As used herein, the term “resource, ” “transmission resource, ” “resource block, ” “physical resource block” (PRB) , “uplink resource, ” or “downlink resource” may refer to any resource for performing a communication, for example, a communication between a terminal device and a network device, such as a resource in time domain, a resource in frequency domain, a resource in space domain, a resource in code domain, or any other resource enabling a communication, and the like. In the following, unless explicitly stated, a resource in both frequency domain and time domain will be used as an example of a transmission resource for describing some example embodiments of the present disclosure. It is noted that example embodiments of the present disclosure are equally applicable to other resources in other domains.

To enhance support of Internet of Thing (IoT) over NTN, especially related to mobility for eMTC, there is a need to achieve mobility enhancement objectives involving, for example, support of neighbour cell measurements and corresponding measurement triggering before a radio link failure (RLF) , using Rel 17 (Terrestrial Network, TN) Narrow Band (NB) -IoT, eMTC as a baseline. The objectives also involve re-use of the solutions introduced in Rel-17 NR NTN for mobility enhancements for eMTC, with minimum necessary changes to adapt them to eMTC. UE radio resource management (RRM) core requirements are also to be defined for the above mobility enhancement features.

As discussed above, in release 17, a key mobility solution for support of NR over NTN is the enhancement of CHO. For a NR NTN terminal device (for example, a UE) , CHO can be configured by configuring A3/A4/A5 radio measurements along with Time/Location based events. The location-based event may comprise condEvent L4 which is, distance between a UE and the reference location of Primary Cell (PCell) becomes larger than a threshold (for example, absolute threshold1) , and the distance between the UE and a conditional reconfiguration candidate becomes shorter than a threshold (for example, absolute threshold2) . The time-based event may comprise an event that a UE is allowed to perform HO only during T1 to T2. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) time plus duration/timer, for example, 00: 00: 01 + 40s, may be used for representing T1 and T2 for CHO time event. The combination of radio measurements and the new triggers may comprise location and RRM and time and RRM to be configuration options for CHO.

Thus, whenever the Time/Location event is triggered, the UE needs to measure A3/A4/A5 as configured before executing the HO to the Target cell. If a UE is power limited and mostly stationary, there might not be a need to measure always. For example, if the satellite follows almost same ephemeris path data as earlier (when HO is performed with measurements) and/or the Radio conditions remained almost same as earlier, then the UE and/or the Network may be confident to consider previous data.

Therefore, there is a need to reduce the measurements to save power of the UE. Constant measurements might cause unnecessary and undesirable power consumption for the eMTC devices. The UE may be given an option to ignore measuring a target cell depending on time/location information along with some additional information considering the tradeoff between successful HO and Power Saving.

Example embodiments of the present disclosure propose a scheme to define thresholds and the corresponding handshake between a terminal device and a network device which could be used for conditionally performing doing radio measurements for CHO. In some example embodiments, if a condition (referred to as a first condition) to perform a measurement is met, the measurement can be skipped optionally according to a condition (referred to a second condition) to skip the measurement.

For example, eMTC devices are power limited and mostly stationary. When accessing an NTN cell, there might not always be a need to perform measurements. This is especially true for NTN where ephemeris and satellite information are known (via System Information Broadcast) . Thus, the UE knows when the cell switch/CHO is likely to be triggered based on estimated radio coverage and the time/location-based trigger (s) . At the same time, not performing measurements may lead to a CHO failure. Embodiments of the present disclosure will perform radio measurements conditionally thereby saving power for the eMTC devices.

For eMTC-NTN, CHO execution condition can be defined as combination of A3/A4/A5 event and location (or distance) or timer (or time) based events for Earth Moving Cells (EMC) scenario. In the context of the present disclosure, the terms “timer/distance based trigger” , “time/location-based trigger” and “time/distance trigger” are intended to have same or similar meaning, and will be used interchangeably. This combined evaluation is needed to ensure that execution considers the radio condition changes at the UE along with conditions linked to NTN cell mobility. In some example embodiments, in case of the power limited and stationary UE, the target cell radio measurements may be skipped if the radio conditions observed over successive execution for the same time/distance trigger remains same and also the result of CHO execution. The UE may internally decide to consider only the timer/distance based trigger without radio measurements depending on the estimated stability of these measurements. The UE may resume the radio measurements for evaluation if the CHO execution based on time/distance trigger was not successful earlier.

Some example embodiments of the present disclosure propose a mechanism where CHO condition is evaluated only against the time/distance based event while skipping radio condition evaluation dynamically based on history of measurements and CHO execution results.

More details will be discussed with reference to FIG. 1 to FIG. 9 as follows.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example communication environment 100 in which example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented. In the communication environment 100, a plurality of communication devices, including a first device 110 and a second device 120, can communicate with each other.

In the example of FIG. 1, the first device 110 may include a terminal device and the second device 120 may include a network device serving the terminal device. The serving area of the second device 120 may be called a cell 102.

It is to be understood that the number of devices and their connections shown in FIG. 1 are only for the purpose of illustration without suggesting any limitation. The communication environment 100 may include any suitable number of devices configured to implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure. Although not shown, it would be appreciated that one or more additional devices may be located in the cell 102, and one or more additional cells may be deployed in the communication environment 100. It is noted that although illustrated as a network device, the second device 120 may be another device than a network device. Although illustrated as a terminal device, the first device 110 may be other devices than a terminal device.

In the following, for the purpose of illustration, some example embodiments are described with the first device 110 operating as a terminal device and the second device 120 operating as a network device. However, in some example embodiments, operations described in connection with a terminal device may be implemented at a network device or other device, and operations described in connection with a network device may be implemented at a terminal device or other device.

In some example embodiments, if the first device 110 is a terminal device and the second device 120 is a network device, a link from the second device 120 to the first device 110 is referred to as a downlink (DL) , while a link from the first device 110 to the second device 120 is referred to as an uplink (UL) . In DL, the second device 120 is a transmitting (TX) device (or a transmitter) and the first device 110 is a receiving (RX) device (or a receiver) . In UL, the first device 110 is a TX device (or a transmitter) and the second device 120 is a RX device (or a receiver) .

Communications in the communication environment 100 may be implemented according to any proper communication protocol (s) , comprising, but not limited to, cellular communication protocols of the first generation (1G) , the second generation (2G) , the third generation (3G) , the fourth generation (4G) , the fifth generation (5G) , the sixth generation (6G) , and the like, wireless local network communication protocols such as Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 and the like, and/or any other protocols currently known or to be developed in the future. Moreover, the communication may utilize any proper wireless communication technology, comprising but not limited to: Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) , Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) , Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) , Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) , Time Division Duplex (TDD) , Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) , Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple (OFDM) , Discrete Fourier Transform spread OFDM (DFT-s-OFDM) and/or any other technologies currently known or to be developed in the future.

There are various deployment scenarios for implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure. For example, a scenario of earth moving cells (different cell covering an area at different times as per the movement of the satellite (s) ) may be used, where serving and target cells may be part of the same satellite, or may be from different satellites. As another example, the deployment scenarios may comprise a scenario of (quasi) Earth Fixed Cells (same cell covering the area even though satellite is moving) , which is a cell switch case where serving and target cells are from different satellites.

In the above or other possible scenarios, CHO for NTN may be configured by configuring time /location event (based on ephemeris data) along with measurement A3/A4/A5. This means, that if time /location event is triggered, the UE may need to do radio measurements A3/A4/A5 as configured and accordingly HO execution will be commenced. For neighbour cells for evaluation at stationary (or low speed moving) IoT/eMTC devices especially if ephemeris data is not changed and radio conditions remain same (less dense cells) when UE is in good coverage, doing radio measurements can be avoided.

FIG. 2 shows an example signaling diagram of a measurement process 200 according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purposes of discussion, the process 200 will be discussed with reference to FIG. 1.

In the measurement process 200, the second device 120 determines (210) that skipping of a measurement is enabled for the first device 110, and then transmits (220) an indication that the skipping of the measurement is enabled to the first device 110. The first device 110, upon receiving (230) the indication, will be aware that the skipping of the measurement is enabled. Then, the first device 110 determines whether a first condition to perform a measurement is met. If the first device 110 determines (240) that the first condition is met, the first device 110 further determines (250) whether a second condition to skip the measurement is met. If yes, the first device 110 may skip the measurement optionally.

In this way, radio measurements can be performed conditionally, instead of constantly performed. Thereby, power for the measurements can be effectively saved. Taking a IoT/eMTC device as an example of the first device, it is helpful in saving power of the IoT/eMTC device by avoiding radio measurements in some scenarios when accessing NTN. Moreover, extra power can be saved due to omitting radio measurements and thus can be used for extra power needed to access NTN. As such, the IoT/eMTC device can maintain their power capabilities.

FIG. 3 shows a flowchart of an example method 300 implemented at the first device 110 in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure.

At block 310, the first device 110 determines that a first condition to perform a measurement is met. The first device 110 may execute various measurements or perform tasks or activities in communications. In some example embodiments, the measurement may comprise a radio measurement for a serving cell of the terminal device, a radio measurement for a neighboring cell, and/or the like.

The first condition may comprise any condition that may trigger a measurement. In some example embodiments, the first condition may comprise related event (s) to trigger a measurement. For example, if related event (s) , such as time/location-based event (s) , occur, it may be determined that the first condition is met.

At block 320, in accordance with a determination that a second condition to skip the measurement is met, the first device 110 skips the measurement. For example, the first device 110 may perform a handover without the measurement. In the context of the present disclosure, a handover with measurement may also be interpreted as a handover which is determined to be performed, at least partially, based on measurements. Likewise, a handover without measurements may be interpreted as a handover decision, which is not based on measurements.

In some example embodiments, the second condition may comprise a condition that the number of successful handovers with measurements is equal to or greater than a first threshold number (for example, measContinuousThreshold) . Alternatively, or in addition, the second condition may comprise a condition that the number of successful handovers without measurements is equal to or less than a second threshold number (for example, measSkipThreshold) . For example, for measContinuousThreshold consecutive times if HO is successful after performing radio measurements, the first device 110 may be allowed (if the first device 110 is confident enough) to skip doing radio measurements for measSkipThreshold for its serving and/or target cell.

It is to be understood that the above examples of the second condition are just described for example, rather than limitation. Any other suitable conditions are also applicable to embodiments of the present disclosure.

The first threshold number and/or the second threshold number may be determined in several ways. In some example embodiments, the first device 110 may receive, from the second device 120, an indication of at least one of the first or second threshold number. In response to receiving the indication of the at least one of the first or second threshold number, the first device 110 may transmit, to the second device 120, an acknowledgement of the at least one of the first or second threshold number.

The first device 110 may adjust the second threshold number. For instance, the first device 110 may increase the second threshold number after a predetermined number of successful handovers without measurements. As another example, the first device 110 may reset at least one of the first or second threshold number based on a change in ephemeris data of a neighboring cell.

In some example embodiments, the thresholds may be adjusted or re-adjusted based on success and/or failure rate for the first device 110 or the second device 120 which the first device 110 can report back to the second device 120. The adjustment may be network-controlled and acknowledged by the first device 110, or hard-coded in the specification. For example, after 10 successful HOs, the measSkipThreshold may be increased by 1 allowing the first device 110 to skip an additional measurement. Thresholds get reset if there is a change in ephemeris data (enough change to not rely on previous HO success rates) .

In some example embodiments, the first device 110 may maintain a first counter (for example, currentMeasContinuous) of successful handovers with measurements and/or a second counter (for example, currentMeasSkipContinuous) of successful handovers without measurements. In some example embodiments, in response to a failure of the handover without the measurement, the first device 110 may reset the first counter of successful handovers with measurements. Alternatively, or in addition, in response to the failure of the handover without the measurement, the first device 110 may reset the second counter of successful handovers without measurements.

In some example embodiments, the first device 110 may transmit to the second device 120 an indication of the first and/or second counter. Accordingly, the second device 120 may determine at least one of the first or second threshold number based on the first and/or second counter.

In some example embodiments, the first device 110 may use time reference (for example, x time) before it plans to execute CHO. For example, the first device 110 may check signal strength of the serving cell or the gradient of signal strength, such that the first device 110 can be more confident in performing CHO without radio measurements.

In some example embodiments, if the second condition is met, the first device 110 may check a current serving-cell signal strength and skip the measurement based on a comparison of the current serving-cell signal strength and at least one earlier serving-cell signal strength. The at least one earlier serving-cell signal strength may comprise earlier serving-cell signal strengths associated with a predetermined number of successful handovers.

In some example embodiments, if the second condition is met, the first device 110 may determine, based on the comparison, that the measurement may be skipped optionally, within a predetermined time duration after checking the current serving-cell signal strength. In some example embodiments, the serving cell signal strength of a current cell may be compared by the first device 110 to average of earlier serving-cell strengths of successful handover execution. Averaging done over N successful CHO execution. The first device 110 may switch to Location/Timer condition only. In this way, the serving cell strength is only checked at the relative (reference) time of execution for similarity to earlier execution (if other information is valid for no radio measurements) .

In some example embodiments, the first device 110 may receive, from the second device 120, assistance information associated with a neighboring cell. The first device 110 may determine whether the second condition to skip the measurement is met, by considering the assistance information.

In some example embodiments, the first device 110 may receive, from the second device 120, an indication that skipping of a measurement is enabled. Based on such an indication, the first device 110 may make a decision with respect to the second condition.

In some example embodiments, after determining whether the first condition is met, the first device 110 may determine whether a condition (referred to as a third condition) to recover a measurement is met. If yes, the first device 110 may perform the measurement. The third condition may comprise various conditions, for example, but not limited to, a condition that a predetermined number of failed handovers occur; a condition that ephemeris data of a neighboring cell is changed; a condition that a condition related to positioning of the neighboring cell is changed; and/or the like.

For example, the first device 110 may switch back to normal execution including measurements for evaluation when the CHO execution fails for “direct execution” . The first device 110 may also switch back to normal CHO execution mode if the target cell ephemeris information or the condition related to position or location was modified.

In some example embodiments, in case of serving cell degradation or based on assistance information provided if the first device 110 is not confident of executing CHO without radio measurements, the first device 110 switches to dual condition mode.

In this way, the second device 120 may provide extra conditions for CHO usage. The first device 110 can, in addition to location/time event, decide if it needs to do radio measurements A3/A4/A5 as configured. This helps in saving power for the first device 110 which is for example an eMTC device. Therefore, the design for NTN eMTC devices may be enhanced.

Example embodiments of the present disclosure may be applied in a variety of scenarios. For example, some example embodiments are suited for NTN where devices are in less dense areas (not served by TN) and so radio conditions from NTN cell during coverage time is relatively unchanged compared to the change in radio conditions observed in TN cell. It is to be noted that the difference between cell center and cell edge in case of NTN is small (～ 3dB) compared to the TN cell which can be 10s of dB. Hence, it gives further motivation to give relaxation w.r.t doing radio measurements.

The above scheme as described may be applied to a legacy HO procedure as well. For example, the first device 110 may transmit a measurement report to trigger the HO, but not include measurements of the target cell, only an indication of the target cell such as physical cell identity (PCI) .

In case of multiple target cells identified during specified time (although less applicable in case of NTN deployment) , the first device 110 may select the HO mode based on historical success rate as mentioned earlier and perform HO with the best cell. In case of failure, CHO recovery mechanisms may be applied and the first device 110 may select the best cell.

As another example scenario, in the case of Earth Moving Cells (EMC) , Serving and Target cells may be on the same satellite or on different satellites. If on the same satellite, the only difference between the Serving and Target cells may be the antenna pattern. So, if the Serving and Target cells residing in the same satellite is one of the configuration aspects, the second device 120 may configure the first device 110 for relaxed measurement scheme mentioned.

As a further example scenario, in the case of Earth Fixed Cells (EFC) , as part of cell switch procedure, Serving and Target cells may be on different satellites. As mentioned above, based on ephemeris/satellite information, the Serving cell can configure the delta elevation the target cell is compared to Serving cell. This aspect of configuration also may be configured by the second device 120.

FIG. 4 shows a flowchart of an example method 400 implemented at the second device 120 in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure.

At block 410, the second device 120 determines that skipping of a measurement is enabled for the first device 110. In some example embodiments, the measurement may comprise at least one of a radio measurement for a serving cell or a radio measurement for a neighboring cell.

In some example embodiments, the second device 120 may determine whether skipping of a measurement is enabled for a first device based on the serving and neighboring cells residing in one device.

At block 420, the second device 120 transmits, to the first device 110, an indication that the skipping of the measurement is enabled. Upon receiving the indication, the first device 110 may be aware that the skipping of the measurement is enabled, and may determine whether the second condition to skip the measurement is met in the case that the first condition is already met. If the second condition is also met, the first device 110 may skip the measurement. In this way, power of the first device 110 can be saved.

In some example embodiments, the second device 120 may transmit, to the first device 110, an indication of at least one of: a first threshold number of successful handovers with measurements, or a second threshold number of successful handovers without measurements. The at least one of the first or second threshold number may be used by the first device 110 to determine whether the measurement is to be skipped.

In some example embodiments, after transmitting the indication of the first threshold number and/or the second threshold number, the second device 120 may receive, from the first device 110, an acknowledgement of the first threshold number and/or the second threshold number.

In some example embodiments, if the first device 110 transmits an indication of a historical success and/or failure rate of handovers without measurements to the second device 120, the second device 120 may receive, from the first device 110 such indication and determine at least one of the first or second threshold number based on the historical success and/or failure rate of handovers.

In some example embodiments, the second device 120 may receive, from the first device 110, an indication of a first counter of successful handovers with measurements and/or a second counter of successful handovers without measurements. With this indication, the second device 120 may determine at least one of the first or second threshold number based on the first and/or second counter. In some example embodiments, the second device 120 may increase the second threshold number after a predetermined number of successful handovers without measurements. Alternatively, or in addition, the second device 120 may reset at least one of the first or second threshold number based on a change in ephemeris data of a neighboring cell.

In some example embodiments, the second device 120 may transmit, to the first device 110, assistance information associated with a neighboring cell. As such, the first device 110 can use the assistance information to determine whether a measurement is to be skipped.

In view of the above, according to example embodiments of the present disclosure, the first device 110 may attempt for CHO execution without radio measurements of target cells. This may be performed based on stored measurements related to earlier CHO executions and the successful handovers related to static radio condition based on the measurements. The number of successful handovers linked to static radio condition for switching to “execution without radio measurements” may be configured by network, as discussed above.

The second device 120 may configure a failure count to switch to dual execution condition. Alternatively, or in addition, the second device 120 may provide additional assistance information to the first device 110 (for example, Target satellite information or the like if Source /Target cells are in the same satellite) for deciding to go with /without radio measurements.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example signaling diagram 500 of a success case of handover according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the success case will be described with respect to FIG. 1. It should be understood that this is just discussed for illustration, without suggesting any limitation to the present disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 5, the first device 110, which may be a terminal device (for example, a UE) , is going to be handed over from a serving cell 502 to a target cell 505. As an example, both the serving and

target cells

502 and 505 may be managed by the second device 120. As another example, the serving cell 502 may be manged by the second device 120 (for example, a serving BS) , and the target cell 505 may be manged by a further device (referred to as a third device) (for example, a target BS) .

The first device 110 may receive (510) , from the serving cell 502, ephemeris data of both the serving cell 502 and the upcoming target cell 505 as part of system information. The first device 110 may transmit (520) , to the serving cell 502, its historical CHO success rate without measurements, for example, with respect to the first device 110, the serving cell 502 and the target cell 505. The first device 110 may receive (530) , from the serving cell 502, the threshold parameters “measContinuousThreshold” and “measSkipThreshold) for the upcoming CHO. Upon receipt (530) of the threshold parameters, the first device 110 may acknowledge (540) the same.

The second device 120 may configure CHO along with assistance information as needed to perform CHO without radio measurements. Then, the first device 110 may receive (550) the configuration. With the configuration, the first device 110 may perform (560) the CHO to the target cell 510 with or without measurements.

For example, in the scenario as shown in FIG. 5, a UE may get ephemeris data from the serving BS (if it is unchanged) and inform the historical HO success rate without radio measurements for this UE, serving cell, target cell to the second device 120 (for example, the serving BS of the UE) . The UE and the serving BS may exchange the threshold parameters “measContinuousThreshold” and “measSkipThreshold” for the upcoming CHO (for example, between the UE, the serving BS, and the target BS) . These values may be updated based on historical HO success /failure rate. For no change in historical HO success/failure rate, the threshold parameters may be not changed or reconfigured. As an alternative, the serving BS may also check the ephemeris data and determine the second condition to skip the measurement and indicate the same to the UE. UE may not need to track ephemeris data.

The UE may also inform values of the internal counter (for example, “currentMeasContinuous” / “currentMeasSkipContinuous” ) . “currentMeasContinuous” may represent how many times UE continuously did successful CHO with radio measurements. “currentMeasSkipContinuous” may represents how many times UE continuously did successful CHO without radio measurements. Then, the serving BS may configure CHO for the target BS with extra information needed for UE to apply CHO without radio measurements. With the configuration, the UE may perform CHO with/without radio measurements as per the above information.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example signaling diagram 600 of a failure case of handover according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the failure case will be described with respect to FIG. 1. It should be understood that this is just discussed for illustration, without suggesting any limitation to the present disclosure.

In the failure case, as shown in FIG. 6, the first device 110, which may be a terminal device (for example, a UE) , is going to be handed over from a serving cell managed by the second device 120 to a target cell, for example, managed by the third device. The second device 120 may first transmit (610) , to the first device 110, ephemeris data of both the serving cell and the upcoming target cell as part of system information. The first device 110 may transmit (620) , to the second device 120, its historical CHO success rate without measurements with respect to the first device 110, the second device 120 and the third device. The second device 120 may transmit (630) , to the first device 110, the threshold parameters “measContinuousThreshold” and “measSkipThreshold” for the upcoming CHO. Upon receipt of the threshold parameters, the first device 110 may acknowledge (640) the same. Then, the second device 120 may configure CHO along with assistance information as needed to perform CHO without radio measurements and transmit (650) the configuration to the first device 110.

With the configuration, the first device 110 may attempt (660) to execute CHO without measurements, but fails. Then, the first device 110 may perform (662) CHO failure mechanism, recovery mechanism, or other existing mechanism. The first device 110 may cause (664) the internal counter, for example, “currentMeasContinuous” or “currentMeasSkipContinuous” to get reset.

Specifically, in the HO failure scenario as shown in FIG. 6, similar operations 610 to 650 are performed as operations 510 to 550 in success case. What is the difference is that the UE could not successfully execute CHO without radio measurements. The UE may perform CHO recovery if configured, otherwise the UE may trigger RRC re-establishment on the target cell. In this case, UE may reset its counters ( “currentMeasContinuous” , “currentMeasSkipContinuous” ) .

FIG. 7 illustrates an example state diagram 700 of the first device according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 7, the first device 110, which may be a terminal device or a UE, may have two conditions. One is single condition, and other one is dual condition. The single condition represents that a radio measurement is not included for CHO. The dual condition represents that the radio measurement is included for CHO.

In some example embodiments, if “currentMeasContinuous” equals to “measContinuousThreshold” , “currentMeasSkipContinuous” may be set to be a predetermined value, for example, 0. The first device 110 may thus be transferred from the dual condition to the single condition.

In the case of CHO execution failure or the first device 110 is not confident (with available assistance information) to perform CHO without radio measurements, or if “currentMeasSkipContinuous” equals to “measSkipThreshold” , the first device 110 may be transferred from the single condition to the dual condition. At the same time, “currentMeasContinuous” may be set to be a predetermined value, for example, 0.

It is to be noted that “currentMeasSkipContinuous” or “currentMeasContinuous” may be incremented for every successful CHO with or without measurements. In this way, the first device 110 may be transferred between the single condition and dual condition seamlessly. This would be helpful for saving power for IoT/eMTC devices by avoiding radio measurements in some scenarios when accessing NTN. As such, the extra power saved can be used for extra power needed to access NTN. So, the IoT/eMTC devices can maintain their power capabilities.

In some example embodiments, a first apparatus capable of performing any of the method 300 (for example, the first device 110 in FIG. 1) may comprise means for performing the respective operations of the method 300. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module. The first apparatus may be implemented as or included in the first device 110 in FIG. 1.

In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises: means for determining that a first condition to perform a measurement is met; and means for in accordance with a determination that a second condition to skip the measurement is met, skipping the measurement.

In some example embodiments, the measurement comprises at least one of a radio measurement for a serving cell or a radio measurement for a neighboring cell.

In some example embodiments, means for skipping the measurement comprises: means for performing a handover without the measurement.

In some example embodiments, the second condition comprises at least one of:a condition that the number of successful handovers with measurements is equal to or greater than a first threshold number; or a condition that the number of successful handovers without measurements is equal to or less than a second threshold number.

In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from a second device, an indication of at least one of the first or second threshold number.

In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for transmitting, to the second device, an indication of a historical success and/or failure rate of handovers without measurements.

In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for in response to receiving the indication of the at least one of the first or second threshold number, transmitting, to the second device, an acknowledgement of the at least one of the first or second threshold number.

In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for transmitting, to the second device, an indication of a first counter of successful handovers with measurements and/or a second counter of successful handovers without measurements.

In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for increasing the second threshold number after a predetermined number of successful handovers without measurements.

In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for resetting at least one of the first or second threshold number based on a change in ephemeris data of a neighboring cell.

In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for in response to a failure of the handover without the measurement, resetting a first counter of successful handovers with measurements and/or a second counter of successful handovers without measurements.

In some example embodiments, means for skipping the measurement comprises: means for in accordance with the determination that the second condition is met, checking a current serving-cell signal strength; and means for skipping the measurement based on a comparison of the current serving-cell signal strength and at least one earlier serving-cell signal strength.

In some example embodiments, the at least one earlier serving-cell signal strength comprises earlier serving-cell signal strengths associated with a predetermined number of successful handovers.

In some example embodiments, means for skipping the measurement comprises: means for determining, based on the comparison, that the measurement is to be skipped, within a predetermined time duration after checking the current serving-cell signal strength; and means for in accordance with the determination that the measurement is to be skipped, skipping the measurement.

In some example embodiments, means for skipping the measurement comprises: means for receiving, from a second device, assistance information associated with a neighboring cell; and means for in accordance with the determination that the second condition is met, skipping the measurement based on the assistance information.

In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from a second device, an indication that skipping of a measurement is enabled.

In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for in accordance with a further determination that the first condition to perform a measurement is met, determining that a third condition to recover a measurement is met; and means for based on determining that the third condition is met, performing the measurement.

In some example embodiments, the third condition comprises at least one of: a condition that a predetermined number of failed handovers occur; a condition that ephemeris data of a neighboring cell is changed; or a condition that a condition related to positioning of the neighboring cell is changed.

In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises means for performing other operations in some example embodiments of the method 300 or the first device 110. In some example embodiments, the means comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the performance of the first apparatus.

In some example embodiments, a second apparatus capable of performing any of the method 400 (for example, the second device 120 in FIG. 1) may comprise means for performing the respective operations of the method 400. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module. The second apparatus may be implemented as or included in the second device 120 in FIG. 1.

In some example embodiments, the second apparatus comprises means for determining that skipping of a measurement is enabled for a first device; and means for transmitting, to the first device, an indication that the skipping of the measurement is enabled.

In some example embodiments, means for determining that the skipping of the measurement is enabled comprises: means for determining, based on the serving and neighboring cells residing in one device, that the skipping of the measurement is enabled.

In some example embodiments, further comprising: means for transmitting, to the first device, an indication of at least one of: a first threshold number of successful handovers with measurements, or a second threshold number of successful handovers without measurements, at least one of the first or second threshold number to be used by the first device to determine whether a measurement is to be skipped.

In some example embodiments, further comprising: means for in response to transmitting the indication of the at least one of the first or second threshold number, receiving, from the first device, an acknowledgement of the at least one of the first or second threshold number.

In some example embodiments, further comprising: means for receiving, from the first device, an indication of a historical success and/or failure rate of handovers without measurements; and means for determining at least one of the first or second threshold number based on the historical success and/or failure rate of handovers.

In some example embodiments, further comprising: means for receiving, from the first device, an indication of a first counter of successful handovers with measurements and/or a second counter of successful handovers without measurements; and means for determining at least one of the first or second threshold number based on the first and/or second counter.

In some example embodiments, means for determining the at least one of the first or second threshold number based on the first and/or second counter comprises: means for increasing the second threshold number after a predetermined number of successful handovers without measurements.

In some example embodiments, the second apparatus comprises: means for resetting at least one of the first or second threshold number based on a change in ephemeris data of a neighboring cell.

In some example embodiments, the second apparatus comprises: means for transmitting, to the first device, assistance information associated with a neighboring cell, the assistance information to be used by first device to determine whether a measurement is to be skipped.

In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises means for performing other operations in some example embodiments of the method 400 or the second device 120. In some example embodiments, the means comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the performance of the second apparatus.

FIG. 8 is a simplified block diagram of a device 800 that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure. The device 800 may be provided to implement a communication device, for example, the first device 110 or the second device 120 as shown in FIG. 1. As shown, the device 800 includes one or more processors 810, one or more memories 820 coupled to the processor 810, and one or more communication modules 840 coupled to the processor 810.

The communication module 840 is for bidirectional communications. The communication module 840 has one or more communication interfaces to facilitate communication with one or more other modules or devices. The communication interfaces may represent any interface that is necessary for communication with other network elements. In some example embodiments, the communication module 840 may include at least one antenna.

The processor 810 may be of any type suitable to the local technical network and may include one or more of the following: general purpose computers, special purpose computers, microprocessors, digital signal processors (DSPs) and processors based on multicore processor architecture, as non-limiting examples. The device 800 may have multiple processors, such as an application specific integrated circuit chip that is slaved in time to a clock which synchronizes the main processor.

The memory 820 may include one or more non-volatile memories and one or more volatile memories. Examples of the non-volatile memories include, but are not limited to, a Read Only Memory (ROM) 824, an electrically programmable read only memory (EPROM) , a flash memory, a hard disk, a compact disc (CD) , a digital video disk (DVD) , an optical disk, a laser disk, and other magnetic storage and/or optical storage. Examples of the volatile memories include, but are not limited to, a random access memory (RAM) 822 and other volatile memories that will not last in the power-down duration.

A computer program 830 includes computer executable instructions that are executed by the associated processor 810. The instructions of the program 830 may include instructions for performing operations/acts of some example embodiments of the present disclosure. The program 830 may be stored in the memory, e.g., the ROM 824. The processor 810 may perform any suitable actions and processing by loading the program 830 into the RAM 822.

The example embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented by means of the program 830 so that the device 800 may perform any process of the disclosure as discussed with reference to FIG. 2 to FIG. 7. The example embodiments of the present disclosure may also be implemented by hardware or by a combination of software and hardware.

In some example embodiments, the program 830 may be tangibly contained in a computer readable medium which may be included in the device 800 (such as in the memory 820) or other storage devices that are accessible by the device 800. The device 800 may load the program 830 from the computer readable medium to the RAM 822 for execution. In some example embodiments, the computer readable medium may include any types of non-transitory storage medium, such as ROM, EPROM, a flash memory, a hard disk, CD, DVD, and the like. The term “non-transitory, ” as used herein, is a limitation of the medium itself (i.e., tangible, not a signal) as opposed to a limitation on data storage persistency (e.g., RAM vs. ROM) .

FIG. 9 shows an example of the computer readable medium 900 which may be in form of CD, DVD or other optical storage disk. The computer readable medium 900 has the program 830 stored thereon.

Generally, various embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented in hardware or special purpose circuits, software, logic or any combination thereof. Some aspects may be implemented in hardware, while other aspects may be implemented in firmware or software which may be executed by a controller, microprocessor or other computing device. While various aspects of embodiments of the present disclosure are illustrated and described as block diagrams, flowcharts, or using some other pictorial representations, it is to be understood that the block, apparatus, system, technique or method described herein may be implemented in, as non-limiting examples, hardware, software, firmware, special purpose circuits or logic, general purpose hardware or controller or other computing devices, or some combination thereof.

Some example embodiments of the present disclosure also provides at least one computer program product tangibly stored on a computer readable medium, such as a non-transitory computer readable medium. The computer program product includes computer-executable instructions, such as those included in program modules, being executed in a device on a target physical or virtual processor, to carry out any of the methods as described above. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, libraries, objects, classes, components, data structures, or the like that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The functionality of the program modules may be combined or split between program modules as desired in various embodiments. Machine-executable instructions for program modules may be executed within a local or distributed device. In a distributed device, program modules may be located in both local and remote storage media.

Program code for carrying out methods of the present disclosure may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages. The program code may be provided to a processor or controller of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus, such that the program code, when executed by the processor or controller, cause the functions/operations specified in the flowcharts and/or block diagrams to be implemented. The program code may execute entirely on a machine, partly on the machine, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the machine and partly on a remote machine or entirely on the remote machine or server.

In the context of the present disclosure, the computer program code or related data may be carried by any suitable carrier to enable the device, apparatus or processor to perform various processes and operations as described above. Examples of the carrier include a signal, computer readable medium, and the like.

The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signal medium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer readable medium may include but not limited to an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. More specific examples of the computer readable storage medium would include an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM) , a read-only memory (ROM) , an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory) , an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM) , an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

Further, while operations are depicted in a particular order, this should not be understood as requiring that such operations be performed in the particular order shown or in sequential order, or that all illustrated operations be performed, to achieve desirable results. In certain circumstances, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous. Likewise, while several specific implementation details are contained in the above discussions, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the present disclosure, but rather as descriptions of features that may be specific to particular embodiments. Unless explicitly stated, certain features that are described in the context of separate embodiments may also be implemented in combination in a single embodiment. Conversely, unless explicitly stated, various features that are described in the context of a single embodiment may also be implemented in a plurality of embodiments separately or in any suitable sub-combination.

Although the present disclosure has been described in languages specific to structural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the present disclosure defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.

Claims

A first device, comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first device at least to perform:

determining that a first condition to perform a measurement is met; and

in accordance with a determination that a second condition to skip the measurement is met, skipping the measurement.
The first device of claim 1, wherein the measurement comprises at least one of a radio measurement for a serving cell or a radio measurement for a neighboring cell.
The first device of claim 1 or 2, wherein skipping the measurement comprises:

performing a handover without the measurement.
The first device of any of claims 1-3, wherein the second condition comprises at least one of:

a condition that the number of successful handovers with measurements is equal to or greater than a first threshold number; or

a condition that the number of successful handovers without measurements is equal to or less than a second threshold number.
The first device of claim 4, wherein the first device is further caused to perform:

receiving, from a second device, an indication of at least one of the first or second threshold number.
The first device of claim 5, wherein the first device is further caused to perform:

transmitting, to the second device, an indication of a historical success and/or failure rate of handovers without measurements.
The first device of claim 5 or 6, wherein the first device is further caused to perform:

in response to receiving the indication of the at least one of the first or second threshold number, transmitting, to the second device, an acknowledgement of the at least one of the first or second threshold number.
The first device of any of claims 5-7, wherein the first device is further caused to perform:

transmitting, to the second device, an indication of a first counter of successful handovers with measurements and/or a second counter of successful handovers without measurements.
The first device of any of claims 4-8, wherein the first device is further caused to perform:

increasing the second threshold number after a predetermined number of successful handovers without measurements.
The first device of any of claims 4-9, wherein the first device is further caused to perform:

resetting at least one of the first or second threshold number based on a change in ephemeris data of a neighboring cell.
The first device of any of claims 4-10, wherein the first device is further caused to perform:

in response to a failure of the handover without the measurement, resetting a first counter of successful handovers with measurements and/or a second counter of successful handovers without measurements.
The first device of any of claims 1-11, wherein skipping the measurement comprises:

in accordance with the determination that the second condition is met, checking a current serving-cell signal strength; and

skipping the measurement based on a comparison of the current serving-cell signal strength and at least one earlier serving-cell signal strength.
The first device of claim 12, wherein the at least one earlier serving-cell signal strength comprises earlier serving-cell signal strengths associated with a predetermined number of successful handovers.
The first device of claim 12 or 13, wherein skipping the measurement comprises:

determining, based on the comparison, that the measurement is to be skipped, within a predetermined time duration after checking the current serving-cell signal strength; and

in accordance with the determination that the measurement is to be skipped, skipping the measurement.
The first device of any of claims 1-14, wherein skipping the measurement comprises:

receiving, from a second device, assistance information associated with a neighboring cell; and

in accordance with the determination that the second condition is met, skipping the measurement based on the assistance information.
The first device of any of claims 1-15, wherein the first device is further caused to perform:

receiving, from a second device, an indication that skipping of a measurement is enabled.
The first device of any of claims 1-16, wherein the first device is further caused to perform:

in accordance with a further determination that the first condition to perform a measurement is met, determining that a third condition to recover a measurement is met; and

based on determining that the third condition is met, performing the measurement.
The first device of claim 17, wherein the third condition comprises at least one of:

a condition that a predetermined number of failed handovers occur;

a condition that ephemeris data of a neighboring cell is changed; or

a condition that a condition related to positioning of the neighboring cell is changed.
A second device, comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the second device at least to perform:

determining that skipping of a measurement is enabled for a first device; and

transmitting, to the first device, an indication that the skipping of the measurement is enabled.
The second device of claim 19, wherein the measurement comprises at least one of a radio measurement for a serving cell or a radio measurement for a neighboring cell.
The second device of claim 20, wherein determining that the skipping of the measurement is enabled comprises:

determining, based on the serving and neighboring cells residing in one device, that the skipping of the measurement is enabled.
The second device of any of claims 19-21, wherein the second device is further caused to perform:

transmitting, to the first device, an indication of at least one of:

a first threshold number of successful handovers with measurements, or

a second threshold number of successful handovers without measurements,

at least one of the first or second threshold number to be used by the first device to determine whether a measurement is to be skipped.
The second device of claim 22, wherein the second device is further caused to perform:

in response to transmitting the indication of the at least one of the first or second threshold number, receiving, from the first device, an acknowledgement of the at least one of the first or second threshold number.
The second device of claim 22 or 23, wherein the second device is further caused to perform:

receiving, from the first device, an indication of a historical success and/or failure rate of handovers without measurements; and

determining at least one of the first or second threshold number based on the historical success and/or failure rate of handovers.
The second device of any of claims 22-24, wherein the second device is further caused to perform:

receiving, from the first device, an indication of a first counter of successful handovers with measurements and/or a second counter of successful handovers without measurements; and

determining at least one of the first or second threshold number based on the first and/or second counter.
The second device of claim 25, wherein determining the at least one of the first or second threshold number based on the first and/or second counter comprises:

increasing the second threshold number after a predetermined number of successful handovers without measurements.
The second device of any of claims 22-26, wherein the second device is further caused to perform:

resetting at least one of the first or second threshold number based on a change in ephemeris data of a neighboring cell.
The second device of any of claims 19-27, wherein the second device is further caused to perform:

transmitting, to the first device, assistance information associated with a neighboring cell, the assistance information to be used by first device to determine whether a measurement is to be skipped.
A method, comprising:

at a first device,

determining that a first condition to perform a measurement is met; and

in accordance with a determination that a second condition to skip the measurement is met, skipping the measurement.
The method of claim 29, wherein the measurement comprises at least one of a radio measurement for a serving cell or a radio measurement for a neighboring cell.
The method of claim 29 or 30, wherein skipping the measurement comprises:

performing a handover without the measurement.
The method of any of claims 29-31, wherein the second condition comprises at least one of:

a condition that the number of successful handovers with measurements is equal to or greater than a first threshold number; or

a condition that the number of successful handovers without measurements is equal to or less than a second threshold number.
The method of claim 32, further comprising:

receiving, from a second device, an indication of at least one of the first or second threshold number.
The method of claim 33, further comprising:

transmitting, to the second device, an indication of a historical success and/or failure rate of handovers without measurements.
The method of claim 33 or 34, further comprising:

in response to receiving the indication of the at least one of the first or second threshold number, transmitting, to the second device, an acknowledgement of the at least one of the first or second threshold number.
The method of any of claims 33-35, further comprising:

transmitting, to the second device, an indication of a first counter of successful handovers with measurements and/or a second counter of successful handovers without measurements.
The method of any of claims 32-36, further comprising:

increasing the second threshold number after a predetermined number of successful handovers without measurements.
The method of any of claims 32-37, further comprising:

resetting at least one of the first or second threshold number based on a change in ephemeris data of a neighboring cell.
The method of any of claims 32-38, further comprising:

in response to a failure of the handover without the measurement, resetting a first counter of successful handovers with measurements and/or a second counter of successful handovers without measurements.
The method of any of claims 29-39, wherein skipping the measurement comprises:

in accordance with the determination that the second condition is met, checking a current serving-cell signal strength; and

skipping the measurement based on a comparison of the current serving-cell signal strength and at least one earlier serving-cell signal strength.
The method of claim 40, wherein the at least one earlier serving-cell signal strength comprises earlier serving-cell signal strengths associated with a predetermined number of successful handovers.
The method of claim 40 or 41, wherein skipping the measurement comprises:

determining, based on the comparison, that the measurement is to be skipped, within a predetermined time duration after checking the current serving-cell signal strength; and

in accordance with the determination that the measurement is to be skipped, skipping the measurement.
The method of any of claims 29-42, wherein skipping the measurement comprises:

receiving, from a second device, assistance information associated with a neighboring cell; and

in accordance with the determination that the second condition is met, skipping the measurement based on the assistance information.
The method of any of claims 29-43, further comprising:

receiving, from a second device, an indication that skipping of a measurement is enabled.
The method of any of claims 29-44, further comprising:

in accordance with a further determination that the first condition to perform a measurement is met, determining that a third condition to recover a measurement is met; and

based on determining that the third condition is met, performing the measurement.
The method of claim 45, wherein the third condition comprises at least one of:

a condition that a predetermined number of failed handovers occur;

a condition that ephemeris data of a neighboring cell is changed; or

a condition that a condition related to positioning of the neighboring cell is changed.
A method, comprising:

at a second device,

determining that skipping of a measurement is enabled for a first device; and

transmitting, to the first device, an indication that the skipping of the measurement is enabled.
The method of claim 47, wherein the measurement comprises at least one of a radio measurement for a serving cell or a radio measurement for a neighboring cell.
The method of claim 48, wherein determining that the skipping of the measurement is enabled comprises:

determining, based on the serving and neighboring cells residing in one device, that the skipping of the measurement is enabled.
The method of any of claims 47-49, further comprising:

transmitting, to the first device, an indication of at least one of:

a first threshold number of successful handovers with measurements, or

a second threshold number of successful handovers without measurements,

at least one of the first or second threshold number to be used by the first device to determine whether a measurement is to be skipped.
The method of claim 50, further comprising:

in response to transmitting the indication of the at least one of the first or second threshold number, receiving, from the first device, an acknowledgement of the at least one of the first or second threshold number.
The method of claim 50 or 51, further comprising:

receiving, from the first device, an indication of a historical success and/or failure rate of handovers without measurements; and

determining at least one of the first or second threshold number based on the historical success and/or failure rate of handovers.
The method of any of claims 50-52, further comprising:

receiving, from the first device, an indication of a first counter of successful handovers with measurements and/or a second counter of successful handovers without measurements; and

determining at least one of the first or second threshold number based on the first and/or second counter.
The method of claim 53, wherein determining the at least one of the first or second threshold number based on the first and/or second counter comprises:

increasing the second threshold number after a predetermined number of successful handovers without measurements.
The method of any of claims 50-54, further comprising:

resetting at least one of the first or second threshold number based on a change in ephemeris data of a neighboring cell.
The method of any of claims 47-55, further comprising:

transmitting, to the first device, assistance information associated with a neighboring cell, the assistance information to be used by first device to determine whether a measurement is to be skipped.
A first apparatus, comprising:

means for determining that a first condition to perform a measurement is met; and

means for in accordance with a determination that a second condition to skip the measurement is met, skipping the measurement.
A second apparatus, comprising:

means for determining that skipping of a measurement is enabled for a first device; and

means for transmitting, to the first device, an indication that the skipping of the measurement is enabled.
A computer readable medium comprising instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus at least to perform the method of any of claims 29-46 or the method of any of claims 47-56.