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WO2025097422A1 - Dispositif réseau, dispositif terminal et procédés associés pour une formation de faisceau hybride améliorée - Google Patents

Dispositif réseau, dispositif terminal et procédés associés pour une formation de faisceau hybride améliorée Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2025097422A1
WO2025097422A1 PCT/CN2023/130963 CN2023130963W WO2025097422A1 WO 2025097422 A1 WO2025097422 A1 WO 2025097422A1 CN 2023130963 W CN2023130963 W CN 2023130963W WO 2025097422 A1 WO2025097422 A1 WO 2025097422A1
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WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
srs
time
domain
terminal device
symbol
Prior art date
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PCT/CN2023/130963
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English (en)
Inventor
Yipeng ZHANG
Jiying Xu
Wenling Bai
Lin Yao
Yanda TONG
Billy Hogan
Martin ALLANDER
Huaisong Zhu
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Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson AB
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Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson AB
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Priority to PCT/CN2023/130963 priority Critical patent/WO2025097422A1/fr
Publication of WO2025097422A1 publication Critical patent/WO2025097422A1/fr
Pending legal-status Critical Current
Anticipated expiration legal-status Critical

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Classifications

    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04B—TRANSMISSION
    • H04B7/00—Radio transmission systems, i.e. using radiation field
    • H04B7/02—Diversity systems; Multi-antenna system, i.e. transmission or reception using multiple antennas
    • H04B7/04—Diversity systems; Multi-antenna system, i.e. transmission or reception using multiple antennas using two or more spaced independent antennas
    • H04B7/06—Diversity systems; Multi-antenna system, i.e. transmission or reception using multiple antennas using two or more spaced independent antennas at the transmitting station
    • H04B7/0686—Hybrid systems, i.e. switching and simultaneous transmission
    • H04B7/0695—Hybrid systems, i.e. switching and simultaneous transmission using beam selection
    • H04B7/06952—Selecting one or more beams from a plurality of beams, e.g. beam training, management or sweeping
    • H04B7/06966—Selecting one or more beams from a plurality of beams, e.g. beam training, management or sweeping using beam correspondence; using channel reciprocity, e.g. downlink beam training based on uplink sounding reference signal [SRS]
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L5/00—Arrangements affording multiple use of the transmission path
    • H04L5/003—Arrangements for allocating sub-channels of the transmission path
    • H04L5/0048—Allocation of pilot signals, i.e. of signals known to the receiver
    • H04L5/0051—Allocation of pilot signals, i.e. of signals known to the receiver of dedicated pilots, i.e. pilots destined for a single user or terminal
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L5/00—Arrangements affording multiple use of the transmission path
    • H04L5/0001—Arrangements for dividing the transmission path
    • H04L5/0014—Three-dimensional division
    • H04L5/0023—Time-frequency-space

Definitions

  • the present disclosure relates to wireless communication technology, and more particularly, to a network device, a terminal device, and methods therein for enhanced hybrid beamforming.
  • MIMO Multiple Input Multiple Output
  • RF Radio Frequency
  • Figs. 1A and 1B show an architecture of hybrid beamforming with full complexity and an architecture of hybrid beamforming with reduced complexity, respectively.
  • N s may be up to 4 for single user MIMO
  • N s may be up to 4 for single user MIMO
  • the signal of each of the N baseband ports is phase-shifted and weighted, and then fed to each of N*M physical antennas, That is, the signal transmitted at each physical antenna is a weighted combination of the signals of all N baseband ports.
  • the architecture shown in Fig. 1 B is similar to that shown in Fig.
  • the physical antennas are divided into N groups each including M physical antennas, and the signal of each of the N baseband ports is phase-shifted and weighted, and then fed to each of M physical antennas in one group.
  • signals received by the physical antennas are first subjected to time domain beamforming and then baseband processing to restore data streams.
  • the architecture in Fig. 1 B is widely adopted in the industry for its lower complexity.
  • Reciprocity means downlink channel information, or part of the downlink channel information, can be obtained from an uplink channel. This is a unique feature in Time Division Duplex (TDD) systems, where both downlink and uplink operate in the same frequency band.
  • TDD Time Division Duplex
  • downlink beamforming weights are calculated based on uplink channel information, which may be estimated based on an uplink Demodulation Reference Signal (DMRS) or Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) .
  • DMRS is a signal transmitted together with uplink traffic data, which means it only occurs when the terminal device has an uplink data request.
  • the requesting time and data size may vary all the time, and due to such uncertainty, it cannot be guaranteed that the DMRS channel can be transmitted timely and can cover all frequency bands.
  • the DMRS-based beamforming is typically carried out based on an estimated Angle of Arrival (AoA) obtained from the estimated DMRS channel.
  • AoA estimated Angle of Arrival
  • the SRS is a signal that can be configured as periodic or aperiodic, and/or as full band or narrow band.
  • Fig. 2 shows SRS-based beamforming.
  • an uplink channel H UL is estimated based on an SRS.
  • the uplink channel H UL may be estimated according to:
  • R is a received signal at a network device and S is an SRS transmitted at a terminal device.
  • a downlink channelH DL can be constructed based on the uplink channel, according to:
  • ⁇ H Hermitian transpose
  • Resource allocation for SRS may be periodic or aperiodic.
  • Fig. 3 shows an example of a Periodic SRS (P-SRS) configuration.
  • the SRS period is 20ms
  • each terminal device or referred to as “SRS user” in this sense
  • there are four symbols for transmitting/receiving an SRS (referred to as “SRS symbols” hereinafter) per slot
  • the transmission comb (interval between frequency domain resources for a same terminal, in Resource Elements (REs) ) is 4.
  • Each terminal device here is assumed to have one transmitting antenna and four receiving antennas (1T4R) , and thus four slots are needed in each period for the terminal device to transmit SRSs for four antenna ports, respectively.
  • T4R transmitting antenna and four receiving antennas
  • REs filled with each type of pattern is allocated to one terminal device.
  • the SRS capacity including the number of SRS users per symbol (4 in this case) and the number of SRS users per cell (64 in this case, assuming four cyclic shifts) , are fixed once the cell level SRS configuration is determined.
  • the P-SRS is configured via Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling. As long as the P-SRS is configured, the terminal device will transmit the SRS periodically, no matter whether the SRS is necessary or not, which may result in waste of some of the configured SRS resources.
  • RRC Radio Resource Control
  • the Aperiodic SRS (AP-SRS) is configured via Downlink Control Information (DCI) , which is more flexible. In the AP-SRS, the SRS will only be triggered when necessary, e.g., for channel monitoring, leading to more efficient SRS utilization.
  • DCI Downlink Control Information
  • SRS resources are limited, for either the P-SRS or the AP-SRS.
  • an AP-SRS validation (user selection) function is introduced to allocate the limited SRS resources to terminal devices that need them most, so as to maximize the cell and user performance.
  • the AP-SRS validation is based on estimated uplink channel quality, or cell level SRS resource availability.
  • feature specific conditions may also be considered, including e.g., whether a downlink buffer size is big enough to trigger SRS-based reciprocity Multi-User (MU) MIMO, or whether uplink frequency-selective scheduling needs to be triggered.
  • MU reciprocity Multi-User
  • the received signal will be first subjected to time-domain beamforming, and thus received signal R in the above Equation (1) will be changed to w td *R before baseband processing, where w td denotes time-domain beamforming weights. That means the uplink channel obtained using Equation (1) is specific to one time-domain beam, e.g., one direction or one angle. In turn, the downlink channel obtained using the above Equation (2) is also specific to that particular direction or angle. If the uplink channel estimation and the downlink data transmission use different time-domain beams, the reciprocity cannot be maintained and the transmission performance may be significantly degraded.
  • the smallest time granularity for time-domain beamforming is one symbol, e.g., one Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) symbol.
  • OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
  • a method in a network device includes determining a first time-domain SRS beam for receiving an SRS from a terminal device.
  • the first time-domain SRS beam corresponds to a time-domain data beam to be used for data transmission to the terminal device.
  • the method further includes transmitting, to the terminal device, a signaling message indicating a resource for use by the terminal device to transmit the SRS.
  • the resource is in a first symbol mapped to the first time-domain SRS beam.
  • the method may further include determining a mapping between a number of symbols including the first symbol and a number of time-domain SRS beams including the first time-domain SRS beam. This provides a symbol-beam mapping at a cell level, allowing a centralized resource planning for SRS transmissions from the perspective of a cell, such that SRS resources in these symbols can be allocated to terminal devices in the cell.
  • the operation of determining the mapping may include determining the number of time-domain SRS beams and determining one or more symbols to be mapped to each time-domain SRS beam.
  • the number of time-domain SRS beams may be determined based on one or more of a time-domain beam width and a time-domain beam coverage configuration. This allows the SRS beams, collectively, to cover an entire range of directions or angles.
  • the one or more symbols to be mapped to each time-domain SRS beam may be determined based on one or more of an SRS bandwidth, a distribution of terminal devices with respect to time-domain beams, and whether frequency hopping is enabled or not.
  • the symbol-beam mapping can be adapted to various SRS configurations (e.g., either the SRS is full-band or sub-band, or either the frequency hopping is enabled or not for the SRS, which may need different numbers of symbols for the SRS to cover an entire system bandwidth for each beam direction or angle) or various user distributions (e.g., either the terminal devices in the cell are distributed uniformly or biasedly, which may need different numbers of symbols for different beam directions or angles) .
  • various SRS configurations e.g., either the SRS is full-band or sub-band, or either the frequency hopping is enabled or not for the SRS, which may need different numbers of symbols for the SRS to cover an entire system bandwidth for each beam direction or angle
  • various user distributions e.g., either the terminal devices in the cell are distributed uniformly or biasedly, which may need different numbers of symbols for different beam directions or angles
  • the one or more symbols to be mapped to each time-domain SRS beam may be determined such that a same number of symbols are mapped to each time-domain SRS beam, or such that a number of symbols mapped to each time-domain SRS beam depends on a number of terminal devices corresponding to that time-domain SRS beam.
  • the method may further include, prior to transmitting the signaling message to the terminal device, initiating resource allocation in a second symbol mapped to the first time-domain SRS beam.
  • the resource in the first symbol may be allocated in response to failure of the resource allocation in the second symbol.
  • the method may further include, prior to determining the first time-domain SRS beam, determining a second time-domain SRS beam for receiving the SRS from the terminal device, the second time-domain SRS beam corresponding to a candidate time-domain data beam for data transmission to the terminal device, and initiating resource allocation in a third symbol mapped to the second time-domain SRS beam.
  • the first time-domain SRS beam may be determined in response to failure of the resource allocation in the third symbol.
  • the time-domain data beam may have power or quality lower than the candidate time-domain data beam by no more than a threshold.
  • the method may further include updating the time-domain data beam with a further time-domain data beam, and initiating resource allocation in a fourth symbol for the terminal device to transmit the SRS.
  • the fourth symbol may be mapped to a third time-domain SRS beam corresponding to the further time-domain data beam.
  • the method may further include updating, in response to a number of terminal devices corresponding to one of the number of time-domain SRS beams being smaller than a threshold and a number of terminal devices corresponding to another one of the number of time-domain SRS beams being larger than another threshold, the mapping such that at least one symbol previously mapped to the one time-domain SRS beam is mapped to the other one time-domain SRS beam.
  • the symbol-beam mapping can be updated to reassign one or more symbols from the second beam direction or angle to the first beam direction or angle, leading to improved SRS resource utilization.
  • the method may further include transmitting, to at least one of the terminal devices corresponding to the one time-domain SRS beam, a signaling message indicating release of a resource in the at least one symbol.
  • the method may further include receiving the SRS from the terminal device over the resource using the first time-domain SRS beam, and transmitting data to the terminal with beamforming according to channel information obtained based on the SRS, using the time-domain data beam.
  • the SRS may be a periodic SRS or an aperiodic SRS.
  • a method in a terminal device includes receiving, from a network device, a signaling message indicating a resource in a symbol.
  • the symbol is mapped to a time-domain SRS beam for use by the network device to receive an SRS.
  • the time-domain SRS beam corresponds to a time-domain data beam to be used by the network device for data transmission to the terminal device.
  • the method further includes transmitting, to the network device, the SRS over the resource.
  • a network device includes a transceiver, a processor, and a memory.
  • the memory includes instructions executable by the processor whereby the network device is operative to perform the method according to the above first aspect.
  • a computer readable storage medium has computer program instructions stored thereon.
  • the computer program instructions when executed by a processor in a network device, cause the network device to perform the method according to the above first aspect.
  • a terminal device includes a transceiver, a processor, and a memory.
  • the memory includes instructions executable by the processor whereby the terminal device is operative to perform the method according to the above second aspect.
  • a computer readable storage medium has computer program instructions stored thereon.
  • the computer program instructions when executed by a processor in a terminal device, cause the terminal device to perform the method according to the above second aspect.
  • a network device determines a time-domain SRS beam for receiving an SRS from a terminal device.
  • the time-domain SRS beam corresponds to a time-domain data beam to be used for data transmission to the terminal device.
  • the network device indicates to the terminal device a resource for use by the terminal device to transmit the SRS, and the resource is in a symbol mapped to the first time-domain SRS beam.
  • the time-domain SRS beam can be aligned with the time-domain data beam, such that the channel reciprocity may be maintained.
  • Figs. 1A and 1B are schematic diagrams each showing an architecture of hybrid beamforming
  • Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a P-SRS configuration
  • Fig. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a method in a network device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure
  • Figs. 5A ⁇ 5D are schematic diagrams each showing an example of symbol-beam mapping
  • Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram showing SSB beam sweeping
  • Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram showing an example of update of symbol-beam mapping
  • Fig. 8 is a flowchart illustrating a method in a terminal device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure
  • Fig. 9 is a sequence diagram showing an example of a process of reciprocity-based time-domain beamforming
  • Fig. 10 is a schematic diagram showing a simulation result of reciprocity-based beamforming performance
  • Fig. 11 is a block diagram of a network device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
  • Fig. 12 is a block diagram of a terminal device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
  • Fig. 13 is a block diagram of a network device according to another embodiment of the present disclosure.
  • Fig. 14 is a block diagram of a terminal device according to another embodiment of the present disclosure.
  • Fig. 15 schematically illustrates a telecommunication network connected via an intermediate network to a host computer
  • Fig. 16 is a generalized block diagram of a host computer communicating via a base station with a user equipment over a partially wireless connection;
  • Figs. 17 to 20 are flowcharts illustrating methods implemented in a communication system including a host computer, a base station and a user equipment.
  • wireless communication network refers to a network following any suitable communication standards, such as NR, LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) , LTE, Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) , High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) , and so on.
  • LTE-A LTE-Advanced
  • WCDMA Wideband Code Division Multiple Access
  • HSPA High-Speed Packet Access
  • the communications between a terminal device and a network node in the wireless communication network may be performed according to any suitable generation communication protocols, including, but not limited to, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) , Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) , Long Term Evolution (LTE) , and/or other suitable 1G (the first generation) , 2G (the second generation) , 2.5G, 2.75G, 3G (the third generation) , 4G (the fourth generation) , 4.5G, 5G (the fifth generation) communication protocols, wireless local area network (WLAN) standards, such as the IEEE 802.11 standards; and/or any other appropriate wireless communication standard, such as the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax) , Bluetooth, and/or ZigBee standards, and/or any other protocols either currently known or to be developed in the future.
  • GSM Global System for Mobile Communications
  • UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
  • LTE Long Term Evolution
  • 1G the first generation
  • 2G the second generation
  • network node refers to a device in a wireless communication network via which a terminal device accesses the network and receives services therefrom.
  • the network node or network device refers to a base station (BS) , an access point (AP) , or any other suitable device in the wireless communication network.
  • BS base station
  • AP access point
  • the BS may be, for example, a node B (NodeB or NB) , an evolved NodeB (eNodeB or eNB) , or a (next) generation NodeB (gNB) , a Remote Radio Unit (RRU) , a radio header (RH) , a remote radio head (RRH) , a relay, a Iow power node such as a femto, a pico, and so forth.
  • NodeB or NB node B
  • eNodeB or eNB evolved NodeB
  • gNB nodeB
  • RRU Remote Radio Unit
  • RH radio header
  • RRH remote radio head
  • Iow power node such as a femto, a pico, and so forth.
  • the network node may include multi-standard radio (MSR) radio equipment such as MSR BSs, network controllers such as radio network controllers (RNCs) or base station controllers (BSCs) , base transceiver stations (BTSs) , transmission points, transmission nodes.
  • MSR multi-standard radio
  • RNCs radio network controllers
  • BSCs base station controllers
  • BTSs base transceiver stations
  • the network device may represent any suitable device (or group of devices) capable, configured, arranged, and/or operable to enable and/or provide a terminal device access to the wireless communication network or to provide some service to a terminal device that has accessed the wireless communication network.
  • terminal device refers to any end device that can access a wireless communication network and receive services therefrom.
  • the terminal device refers to a mobile terminal, user equipment (UE) , or other suitable devices.
  • the UE may be, for example, a Subscriber Station (SS) , a Portable Subscriber Station, a Mobile Station (MS) , or an Access Terminal (AT) .
  • SS Subscriber Station
  • MS Mobile Station
  • AT Access Terminal
  • the terminal device may include, but not limited to, portable computers, desktop computers, image capture terminal devices such as digital cameras, gaming terminal devices, music storage and playback appliances, a mobile phone, a cellular phone, a smart phone, voice over IP (VolP) phones, wireless local loop phones, tablets, personal digital assistants (PDAs) , wearable terminal devices, 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) and the like.
  • the terms “terminal device” , “terminal” , “user equipment” and “UE” may be used interchangeably.
  • a terminal device may represent a UE configured for communication in accordance with one or more communication standards promulgated by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) , such as 3GPP′sGSM, UMTS, LTE, and/or 5G standards.
  • 3GPP 3rd Generation Partnership Project
  • a "user equipment” or “UE” may not necessarily have a "user” in the sense of a human user who owns and/or operates the relevant device.
  • a terminal device may be configured to transmit and/or receive information without direct human interaction.
  • a terminal device may be designed to transmit information to a network on a predetermined schedule, when triggered by an internal or external event, or in response to requests from the wireless communication network.
  • a UE may represent a device that is intended for sale to, or operation by, a human user but that may not initially be associated with a specific human user.
  • the terminal device may support device-to-device (D2D) communication, for example by implementing a 3GPP standard for sidelink communication, and may in this case be referred to as a D2D communication device.
  • D2D device-to-device
  • a terminal device may represent a machine or other device that performs monitoring and/or measurements, and transmits the results of such monitoring and/or measurements to another terminal device and/or network equipment.
  • the terminal device may in this case be a machine-to-machine (M2M) device, which may in a 3GPP context be referred to as a machine-type communication (MTC) device.
  • M2M machine-to-machine
  • MTC machine-type communication
  • the terminal device may be a UE implementing the 3GPP narrow band internet of things (NB-IoT) standard.
  • NB-IoT narrow band internet of things
  • a terminal device may represent a vehicle or other equipment that is capable of monitoring and/or reporting on its operational status or other functions associated with its operation.
  • a downlink transmission refers to a transmission from the network device to a terminal device
  • an uplink transmission refers to a transmission in an opposite direction
  • references in the specification 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.
  • first and second etc. 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.
  • the term “and/or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed terms. 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.
  • Fig. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a method 400 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
  • the method 400 can be performed by a network device, e.g., agNB.
  • the network device determines, a first time-domain SRS beam for receiving an SRS from a terminal device.
  • the first time-domain SRS beam corresponds to a time-domain data beam to be used for data transmission to the terminal device.
  • a time-domain SRS beam may correspond to time-domain beamforming weights for receiving an SRS, e.g., wtd as described above.
  • a time-domain data beam or referred to as “data beam” for short, may correspond to time-domain beamforming weights for transmitting data.
  • the two beams may be the same, e.g., they may have the same time-domain beamforming weights, and/or they may have the same direction or angle.
  • the network device transmits, to the terminal device, a signaling message indicating a resource for use by the terminal device to transmit the SRS.
  • the resource is in a first symbol mapped to the first time-domain SRS beam.
  • a symbol mapped to a time-domain SRS beam may be referred to as an SRS beam in this context.
  • the network device may determine a mapping between a number of symbols (including the first symbol) and a number of time-domain SRS beams (including the first time-domain SRS beam) . That is, the network device may initialize a cell-level symbol-beam mapping for SRS transmission. The network device may first define how many beams are to be configured in the time domain for SRS transmission, i.e., determine the number of time-domain SRS beams, and then configure the number of symbols for SRS transmission based on the number of time-domain SRS beams, in particular determine one or more symbols to be mapped to each time-domain SRS beam.
  • the number of time-domain SRS beams may be determined based on one or more of a time-domain beam width and a time-domain beam coverage configuration.
  • the beam width may be determined from an antenna array configuration and/or an antenna distance, which are fixed (referring to Phased Array Antenna Handbook, Second Edition, Mailloux, Robert J., Artech House, 2005 and Phased Array Antenna Patterns -Part 1: Linear Array Beam Characteristics and Array Factor, Peter Delos, Bob Broughton, and Jon Kraft, Analog Devices, Vol. 54, No. 2, May 2020, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety) , whereas the beam coverage configuration may vary site by site.
  • the beam coverage may be typically 65 degrees in the horizontal direction and 15 degrees in the vertical direction. If the time-domain beamforming is only applied in the vertical direction with a 6-degree beam width, then 3 time-domain beams are needed for the 15-degree beam coverage.
  • the one or more symbols to be mapped to each time-domain SRS beam may be determined based on one or more of an SRS bandwidth, a distribution of terminal devices with respect to time-domain beams, and whether frequency hopping is enabled or not.
  • the operation of determining the mapping can be applied for both P-SRS and AP-SRS. Some examples in the case of P-SRS will be given below.
  • a same number of symbols may be mapped to each time-domain SRS beam.
  • Fig. 5A shows an example of symbol-beam mapping in the case of P-SRS without frequency hopping.
  • one symbol is mapped to each time-domain SRS beam.
  • the SRS in this example is a full-band SRS, as indicated by shaded REs for symbol 10, and one SRS period is needed for covering the entire band.
  • Fig. 5B shows another example of symbol-beam mapping in the case of P-SRS without frequency hopping. Like the example of Fig.
  • one symbol is mapped to each time-domain SRS beam, and four “SRS symbols” per slot, symbols 10 ⁇ 13, are mapped to four SRS beams, beams 0 ⁇ 3, respectively.
  • the SRSs in this example are sub-band SRSs, including SRSs for sub-band 0 and SRSs for sub-band 1, as indicated by shaded REs for symbol 10, and two SRS periods are needed for covering the entire band.
  • a number of symbols mapped to each time-domain SRS beam may depend on a number of terminal devices corresponding to that time-domain SRS beam.
  • the network device can estimate the number of users (i.e., terminal devices) in each beam direction. With this a priori information, the network device can assign more symbols to an SRS beam having more terminal devices in its direction.
  • Fig. 5C shows another example of symbol-beam mapping. In this example, N2>N1 ⁇ N3>N0, where Ni denotes the number of the terminal devices corresponding to beam i. As shown, more symbols (3 per SRS period) are mapped to beam 2, and accordingly less symbols (1 per SRS period) are mapped to beam 0.
  • Fig. 5D shows an example of symbol-beam mapping in the case of P-SRS with frequency hopping.
  • the main idea is to guarantee that for one full-band channel, the SRS beam shall be the same in the frequency hopping symbols. In the example shown in Fig. 5D, it takes 2 symbols to get a full-band channel, such that two consecutive frequency hopping symbols (e.g., symbols 10 ⁇ 11 or symbols 12 ⁇ 13) shall be mapped to a same SRS beam.
  • the time-domain data beam may be determined by means of Synchronization Signal and Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH) Block (SSB) beam sweeping.
  • PBCH Synchronization Signal and Physical Broadcast Channel
  • SSB Physical Broadcast Channel
  • Fig. 6 shows SSB beam sweeping.
  • the network device broadcasts SSB signals using different time domain beams 0 ⁇ 7 sequentially in time.
  • Each terminal device or UE monitor the signal in each SSB beam and select one beam with highest received signal power or received signal strength as its downlink beam (data beam) .
  • UE1 selects beam 1 as its downlink beam and transmit a random access message to the network device using the same beam.
  • UE2 selects beam 7 as its downlink beam and transmit a random access message to the network device using the same beam.
  • the time-domain data beam may be determined by means of Channel State Information -Reference Signal (CSI-RS) beam sweeping.
  • the network device may perform CSI-RS beam sweeping towards the terminal device, and receive, from the terminal device, a CSl report indicating the time-domain data beam, e.g., as the beam with highest received signal power or strength.
  • CSI-RS Channel State Information -Reference Signal
  • a time-domain SRS beam corresponding to the time-domain data beam can be determined, and the network device may initiate resource allocation in a symbol mapped to the time-domain SRS beam.
  • the resource allocation may follow a “first come, first reserve” rule. That is, if there are available SRS resources in the symbol, an SRS resource can be successfully allocated for the terminal device.
  • the signaling message e.g., a Radio Resource Control (RRC) reconfiguration message, can be transmitted to the terminal device in the block 420, indicating the allocated resource for SRS transmission.
  • RRC Radio Resource Control
  • the network device may determine whether there are available SRS resources in the other symbol, and if so, allocate an SRS resource in the other symbol for the terminal device. In other words, before the block 420, the network device may have initiated resource allocation in a second symbol mapped to the first time-domain SRS beam, and the resource in the first symbol may be allocated in response to failure of the resource allocation in the second symbol.
  • a candidate time-domain data beam (e.g., the best beam) is determined by means of SSB (or CSI-RS) beam sweeping, but there are no available SRS resources in the symbol (s) mapped to the candidate time-domain data beam, and if there is another time-domain data beam (e.g., the second best beam) having power or quality lower than the candidate time-domain data beam by no more than a threshold, the network device may determine whether there are available SRS resources in another symbol mapped to the other time-domain data beam, and if so, allocate an SRS resource in the other symbol for the terminal device.
  • SSB or CSI-RS
  • the network device may have determined a second time-domain SRS beam for receiving the SRS from the terminal device, the second time-domain SRS beam corresponding to a candidate time-domain data beam for data transmission to the terminal device, and initiated resource allocation in a third symbol mapped to the second time-domain SRS beam.
  • the first time-domain SRS beam may be determined in response to failure of the resource allocation in the third symbol.
  • the network device may continuously detect a time-domain data beam for the terminal device by means of SSB or CSI-RS beam sweeping and update the time-domain data beam when appropriate. In order to guarantee channel reciprocity, the SRS beam needs to be updated accordingly.
  • the network device may initiate resource allocation in a fourth symbol for the terminal device to transmit the SRS.
  • the fourth symbol is mapped to a third time-domain SRS beam corresponding to the further time-domain data beam.
  • the network device may try resource allocation in another symbol mapped to the third time-domain SRS beam.
  • the network device may transmit a signaling message, e.g., an RRC reconfiguration message, to the terminal device, indicating the allocated resource for SRS transmission. Otherwise, the network device may transmit a signaling message, e.g., an RRC reconfiguration message with SRS release, for releasing the previously allocated SRS resource.
  • a signaling message e.g., an RRC reconfiguration message with SRS release
  • the user distribution in the cell may vary from time to time, such that the number of users in some beams (directions or angles) may become much larger than the number of users in other beams (directions or angles) .
  • the symbol-beam mapping may be updated to improve user experience. For example, when a number of terminal devices corresponding to one of the number of time-domain SRS beams is smaller than a threshold and a number of terminal devices corresponding to another one of the number of time-domain SRS beams is larger than another threshold, the mapping may be updated such that at least one symbol previously mapped to the one time-domain SRS beam is mapped to the other one time-domain SRS beam.
  • the network device may transmit, to at least one of the terminal devices corresponding to the one time-domain SRS beam, a signaling message indicating release of a resource in the at least one symbol.
  • Fig. 7 shows an example of update of symbol-beam mapping. Initially, four SRS symbols, symbols 10 ⁇ 13, are mapped to four SRS beams, beams 0 ⁇ 3, respectively. Then, a dominant beam and an expandable beam are detected.
  • the dominant beam is a beam corresponding to the largest number of terminal devices to transmit SRSs. If the number of terminal devices to transmit SRSs in the dominant beam is much larger than an upper limit of the number of SRS users that can be configured in this beam, the SRS resources in this beam is much less than required and the number of SRS symbols mapped to this beam may be expanded.
  • a threshold (th1) can be introduced such that a beam corresponding to a number of terminal devices that is larger than the threshold th1 is considered to be “dominant” .
  • the expandable beam is the beam corresponding to the smallest number of terminal devices to transmit SRSs. Only when the number of terminal devices in this expandable beam is much smaller than the upper limit of the number of SRS users that can be configured in this beam, the beam can be considered expandable. Otherwise, it may have a negative impact on the user experience in this beam, which is undesirable.
  • Another threshold (th2) can be introduced such that a beam corresponding to a number of terminal devices that is smaller than the threshold th2 is considered to be “expandable” .
  • beam 1 is determined as the dominant beam and beam 2 is determined as the expandable beam.
  • update of the symbol-beam mapping is desired.
  • the mapping is updated such that symbol 12, which is previously mapped to beam 2, is now mapped to beam 1.
  • the network device may release the SRS resources for the terminal devices that are previously configured to transmit SRSs in symbol 12. This function boosts the performance in the dominant beam by the expense of the users in the expandable beam, and thus it may not be triggered too frequently. A large timer value can be applied to triggering of this function.
  • the network device may receive the SRS from the terminal device over the resource using the first time-domain SRS beam, and transmit data to the terminal with beamforming according to channel information obtained based on the SRS, using the time-domain data beam.
  • the channel reciprocity can be achieved in the hybrid beamforming.
  • the method 400 is applicable for both P-SRS and A-SRS.
  • the SRS resource allocation is a slot level configuration using DCI, and is thus more flexible and efficient. For example, the number of terminal devices corresponding to each SRS beam can be determined every slot, and the update of the symbol-beam mapping and/or the allocation of the SRS resource can be done on a per slot basis.
  • Fig. 8 is a flowchart illustrating a method 800 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
  • the method 800 can be performed by a terminal device, e.g., a UE.
  • the terminal device receives, from a network device, a signaling message indicating a resource in a symbol.
  • the symbol is mapped to a time-domain SRS beam for use by the network device to receive an SRS.
  • the time-domain SRS beam corresponding to a time-domain data beam to be used by the network device for data transmission to the terminal device.
  • the terminal device transmits, to the network device, the SRS over the resource.
  • Fig. 9 shows an example of a process of reciprocity-based time-domain beamforming.
  • a network device initializes cell level symbol-beam mapping, as described above in connection with the method 400 and Figs. 5A ⁇ 5D.
  • the network device performs SSB beam sweeping, i.e., transmitting SSB beams each with a beam identifier or index to a UE, as shown at Step 3.
  • the UE monitors SSB beams and selects one SSB beam having highest power, quality, capacity, e.g., beam_x, and then transmits a random access request to the network device in beam_x at Step 4.
  • the network device determines an SRS beam for receiving an SRS from the UE. In this example, the network device determines beam_x as the SRS beam.
  • the network device allocates an SRS resource for the UE in a symbol mapped to beam_x.
  • the network device transmits an RRC reconfiguration message including an SRS resource set, for indicating to the UE the allocated SRS resource.
  • the UE transmits an SRS using the allocated SRS resource.
  • the network device receives the SRS using beam_x.
  • the network device performs downlink beamforming (precoding) on downlink data using channel information obtained based on the SRS in beam_x.
  • the network device transmits the downlink data to the UE with time-domain beamforming in beam_x.
  • Fig. 10 shows a simulation result of reciprocity-based beamforming performance.
  • the downlink (DL) time-domain data beam is 6 degrees with respect to the vertical direction and a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) throughput is measured versus DL Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) for different SRS beam angles.
  • SNR Signal to Noise Ratio
  • the SRS beam is also 6 degrees, i.e., aligned with the DL beam
  • the SRS beam is 12 degrees, with a 6-degree angle difference from the DL beam, the throughput decreases significantly.
  • the SRS beam is 20 degrees, with a 14-degree angle difference from the DL beam, the throughput further deteriorates.
  • the performance of reciprocity-based beamforming relies heavily on the alignment between the DL beam and the SRS beam. With the embodiments of the present disclosure, such alignment can be guaranteed and thus the throughput performance of reciprocity-based beamforming can be improved.
  • Fig. 11 is a block diagram of a network device 1100 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
  • the network device 1100 may be operative to perform the method 400 as described above in connection with Fig. 4.
  • the network device 1100 includes a determining unit 1110 configured to determine a first time-domain SRS beam for receiving an SRS from a terminal device.
  • the first time-domain SRS beam corresponds to a time-domain data beam to be used for data transmission to the terminal device.
  • the network device 1100 further includes a transmitting unit 1120 configured to transmit, to the terminal device, a signaling message indicating a resource for use by the terminal device to transmit the SRS.
  • the resource is in a first symbol mapped to the first time-domain SRS beam.
  • the network device 1100 may further include a mapping unit configured to determine a mapping between a number of symbols including the first symbol and a number of time-domain SRS beams including the first time-domain SRS beam.
  • the mapping unit may be configured to determine the number of time-domain SRS beams and determine one or more symbols to be mapped to each time-domain SRS beam.
  • the number of time-domain SRS beams may be determined based on one or more of a time-domain beam width and a time-domain beam coverage configuration.
  • the one or more symbols to be mapped to each time-domain SRS beam may be determined based on one or more of an SRS bandwidth, a distribution of terminal devices with respect to time-domain beams, and whether frequency hopping is enabled or not.
  • the one or more symbols to be mapped to each time-domain SRS beam may be determined such that a same number of symbols are mapped to each time-domain SRS beam, or such that a number of symbols mapped to each time-domain SRS beam depends on a number of terminal devices corresponding to that time-domain SRS beam.
  • the network device 1100 may further include a resource allocating unit configured to, prior to transmitting the signaling message to the terminal device, initiate resource allocation in a second symbol mapped to the first time-domain SRS beam.
  • the resource in the first symbol may be allocated in response to failure of the resource allocation in the second symbol.
  • the determining unit 1110 may be further configured to, prior to determining the first time-domain SRS beam, determine a second time-domain SRS beam for receiving the SRS from the terminal device.
  • the second time-domain SRS beam corresponds to a candidate time-domain data beam for data transmission to the terminal device.
  • the network device 1100 may further include a resource allocating unit configured to initiate resource allocation in a third symbol mapped to the second time-domain SRS beam.
  • the first time-domain SRS beam may be determined in response to failure of the resource allocation in the third symbol.
  • the time-domain data beam may have power or quality lower than the candidate time-domain data beam by no more than a threshold.
  • the network device 1100 may further include an updating unit configured to update the time-domain data beam with a further time-domain data beam.
  • the network device 1100 may further include a resource allocating unit configured to initiate resource allocation in a fourth symbol for the terminal device to transmit the SRS.
  • the fourth symbol may be mapped to a third time-domain SRS beam corresponding to the further time-domain data beam.
  • the mapping unit may be further configured to update, in response to a number of terminal devices corresponding to one of the number of time-domain SRS beams being smaller than a threshold and a number of terminal devices corresponding to another one of the number of time-domain SRS beams being larger than another threshold, the mapping such that at least one symbol previously mapped to the one time-domain SRS beam is mapped to the other one time-domain SRS beam.
  • the transmitting unit 1120 may be further configured to transmit, to at least one of the terminal devices corresponding to the one time-domain SRS beam, a signaling message indicating release of a resource in the at least one symbol.
  • the network device 1100 may further include a receiving unit configured to receive the SRS from the terminal device over the resource using the first time-domain SRS beam.
  • the transmitting unit 1120 may be further configured to transmit data to the terminal with beamforming according to channel information obtained based on the SRS, using the time-domain data beam.
  • the SRS may be a periodic SRS or an aperiodic SRS.
  • the units 1110 and 1120 can be implemented as a pure hardware solution or as a combination of software and hardware, e.g., by one or more of: a processor or a micro-processor and adequate software and memory for storing of the software, a Programmable Logic Device (PLD) or other electronic component (s) or processing circuitry configured to perform the actions described above, and illustrated, e.g., in Fig. 4.
  • a processor or a micro-processor and adequate software and memory for storing of the software e.g., a Programmable Logic Device (PLD) or other electronic component (s) or processing circuitry configured to perform the actions described above, and illustrated, e.g., in Fig. 4.
  • PLD Programmable Logic Device
  • Fig. 12 is a block diagram of a terminal device 1200 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
  • the terminal device 1200 may be operative to perform the method 800 as described above in connection with Fig. 8.
  • the terminal device 1200 includes a receiving unit 1210 configured to receive, from a network device, a signaling message indicating a resource in a symbol. The symbol is mapped to a time-domain SRS beam for use by the network device to receive an SRS.
  • the time-domain SRS beam corresponds to a time-domain data beam to be used by the network device for data transmission to the terminal device.
  • the terminal device 1200 further includes a transmitting unit 1220 configured to transmit, to the network device, the SRS over the resource.
  • the units 1210 and 1220 can be implemented as a pure hardware solution or as a combination of software and hardware, e.g., by one or more of: a processor or a micro-processor and adequate software and memory for storing of the software, a Programmable Logic Device (PLD) or other electronic component (s) or processing circuitry configured to perform the actions described above, and illustrated, e.g., in Fig. 8.
  • a processor or a micro-processor and adequate software and memory for storing of the software e.g., a Programmable Logic Device (PLD) or other electronic component (s) or processing circuitry configured to perform the actions described above, and illustrated, e.g., in Fig. 8.
  • PLD Programmable Logic Device
  • Fig. 13 is a block diagram of a network device 1300 according to another embodiment of the present disclosure.
  • the network device 1300 includes a transceiver 1310, a processor 1320 and a memory 1330.
  • the memory 1330 may contain instructions executable by the processor 1320 whereby the network device 1300 is operative to perform the actions, e.g., of the procedure described earlier in conjunction with Fig. 4.
  • the memory 1330 may contain instructions executable by the processor 1320 whereby the network device 1300 is operative to: determine a first time-domain SRS beam for receiving an SRS from a terminal device.
  • the first time-domain SRS beam corresponds to a time-domain data beam to be used for data transmission to the terminal device.
  • the memory 1330 may further contain instructions executable by the processor 1320 whereby the network device 1300 is operative to: transmit, to the terminal device, a signaling message indicating a resource for use by the terminal device to transmit the SRS.
  • the resource is in a first symbol mapped to the first time-domain SRS beam.
  • the memory 1330 may further contain instructions executable by the processor 1320 whereby the network device 1300 is operative to: determine a mapping between a number of symbols including the first symbol and a number of time-domain SRS beams including the first time-domain SRS beam.
  • the operation of determining the mapping may include determining the number of time-domain SRS beams and determining one or more symbols to be mapped to each time-domain SRS beam.
  • the number of time-domain SRS beams may be determined based on one or more of a time-domain beam width and a time-domain beam coverage configuration.
  • the one or more symbols to be mapped to each time-domain SRS beam may be determined based on one or more of an SRS bandwidth, a distribution of terminal devices with respect to time-domain beams, and whether frequency hopping is enabled or not.
  • the one or more symbols to be mapped to each time-domain SRS beam may be determined such that a same number of symbols are mapped to each time-domain SRS beam, or such that a number of symbols mapped to each time-domain SRS beam depends on a number of terminal devices corresponding to that time-domain SRS beam.
  • the memory 1330 may further contain instructions executable by the processor 1320 whereby the network device 1300 is operative to, prior to transmitting the signaling message to the terminal device, initiate resource allocation in a second symbol mapped to the first time-domain SRS beam.
  • the resource in the first symbol may be allocated in response to failure of the resource allocation in the second symbol.
  • the memory 1330 may further contain instructions executable by the processor 1320 whereby the network device 1300 is operative to, prior to determining the first time-domain SRS beam, determine a second time-domain SRS beam for receiving the SRS from the terminal device, the second time-domain SRS beam corresponding to a candidate time-domain data beam for data transmission to the terminal device, and initiate resource allocation in a third symbol mapped to the second time-domain SRS beam.
  • the first time-domain SRS beam may be determined in response to failure of the resource allocation in the third symbol.
  • the time-domain data beam may have power or quality lower than the candidate time-domain data beam by no more than a threshold.
  • the memory 1330 may further contain instructions executable by the processor 1320 whereby the network device 1300 is operative to: update the time-domain data beam with a further time-domain data beam, and initiate resource allocation in a fourth symbol for the terminal device to transmit the SRS.
  • the fourth symbol may be mapped to a third time-domain SRS beam corresponding to the further time-domain data beam.
  • the memory 1330 may further contain instructions executable by the processor 1320 whereby the network device 1300 is operative to: update, in response to a number of terminal devices corresponding to one of the number of time-domain SRS beams being smaller than a threshold and a number of terminal devices corresponding to another one of the number of time-domain SRS beams being larger than another threshold, the mapping such that at least one symbol previously mapped to the one time-domain SRS beam is mapped to the other one time-domain SRS beam.
  • the memory 1330 may further contain instructions executable by the processor 1320 whereby the network device 1300 is operative to: transmit, to at least one of the terminal devices corresponding to the one time-domain SRS beam, a signaling message indicating release of a resource in the at least one symbol.
  • the memory 1330 may further contain instructions executable by the processor 1320 whereby the network device 1300 is operative to: receive the SRS from the terminal device over the resource using the first time-domain SRS beam, and transmit data to the terminal with beamforming according to channel information obtained based on the SRS, using the time-domain data beam.
  • the SRS may be a periodic SRS or an aperiodic SRS.
  • Fig. 14 is a block diagram of a terminal device 1400 according to another embodiment of the present disclosure.
  • the terminal device 1400 includes a transceiver 1410, a processor 1420 and a memory 1430.
  • the memory 1430 may contain instructions executable by the processor 1420 whereby the terminal device 1400 is operative to perform the actions, e.g., of the procedure described earlier in conjunction with Fig. 8. Particularly, the memory 1430 may contain instructions executable by the processor 1420 whereby the terminal device 1400 is operative to: receive, from a network device, a signaling message indicating a resource in a symbol. The symbol is mapped to a time-domain SRS beam for use by the network device to receive an SRS. The time-domain SRS beam corresponds to a time-domain data beam to be used by the network device for data transmission to the terminal device.
  • the memory 1430 may further contain instructions executable by the processor 1420 whereby the terminal device 1400 is operative to: transmit, to the network device, the SRS over the resource.
  • the present disclosure also provides at least one computer program product in the form of a non-volatile or volatile memory, e.g., a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, an Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM) , a flash memory and a hard drive.
  • the computer program product includes a computer program.
  • the computer program includes: code/computer readable instructions, which when executed by the processor 1320 causes the network device 1300 to perform the actions, e.g., of the procedure described earlier in conjunction with Fig. 4; or code/computer readable instructions, which when executed by the processor 1420 causes the terminal node 1400 to perform the actions, e.g., of the procedure described earlier in conjunction with Fig. 8.
  • the computer program product may be configured as a computer program code structured in computer program modules.
  • the computer program modules could essentially perform the actions of the flow illustrated in Fig. 4 or 8.
  • the processor may be a single CPU (Central Processing Unit) , but could also comprise two or more processing units.
  • the processor may include general purpose microprocessors; instruction set processors and/or related chips sets and/or special purpose microprocessors such as Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) .
  • the processor may also comprise board memory for caching purposes.
  • the computer program may be carried by a computer program product connected to the processor.
  • the computer program product may comprise a non-transitory computer readable storage medium on which the computer program is stored.
  • the computer program product may be a flash memory, a Random Access Memory (RAM) , a Read-Only Memory (ROM) , or an EEPROM, and the computer program modules described above could in alternative embodiments be distributed on different computer program products in the form of memories.
  • RAM Random Access Memory
  • ROM Read-Only Memory
  • EEPROM Electrically Erasable programmable read-only memory
  • a communication system includes a telecommunication network 1510, such as a 3GPP-type cellular network, which comprises an access network 1511, such as a radio access network, and a core network 1514.
  • the access network 1511 comprises a plurality of base stations 1512a, 1512b, 1512c, such as NBs, eNBs, gNBs or other types of wireless access points, each defining a corresponding coverage area 1513a, 1513b, 1513c.
  • Each base station 1512a, 1512b, 1512c is connectable to the core network 1514 over a wired or wireless connection 1515.
  • a first user equipment (UE) 1591 located in coverage area 1513c is configured to wirelessly connect to, or be paged by, the corresponding base station 1512c.
  • a second UE 1592 in coverage area 1513a is wirelessly connectable to the corresponding base station 1512a. While a plurality of UEs 1591, 1592 are illustrated in this example, the disclosed embodiments are equally applicable to a situation where a sole UE is in the coverage area or where a sole UE is connecting to the corresponding base station 1512.
  • the telecommunication network 1510 is itself connected to a host computer 1530, which may be embodied in the hardware and/or software of a standalone server, a cloud-implemented server, a distributed server or as processing resources in a server farm.
  • the host computer 1530 may be under the ownership or control of a service provider, or may be operated by the service provider or on behalf of the service provider.
  • the connections 1521, 1522 between the telecommunication network 1510 and the host computer 1530 may extend directly from the core network 1514 to the host computer 1530 or may go via an optional intermediate network 1520.
  • the intermediate network 1520 may be one of, or a combination of more than one of, a public, private or hosted network; the intermediate network 1520, if any, may be a backbone network or the Internet; in particular, the intermediate network 1520 may comprise two or more sub-networks (not shown) .
  • the communication system of Fig. 15 as a whole enables connectivity between one of the connected UEs 1591, 1592 and the host computer 1530.
  • the connectivity may be described as an over-the-top (OTT) connection 1550.
  • the host computer 1530 and the connected UEs 1591, 1592 are configured to communicate data and/or signaling via the OTT connection 1550, using the access network 1511, the core network 1514, any intermediate network 1520 and possible further infrastructure (not shown) as intermediaries.
  • the OTT connection 1550 may be transparent in the sense that the participating communication devices through which the OTT connection 1550 passes are unaware of routing of uplink and downlink communications.
  • a base station 1512 may not or need not be informed about the past routing of an incoming downlink communication with data originating from a host computer 1530 to be forwarded (e.g., handed over) to a connected UE 1591. Similarly, the base station 1512 need not be aware of the future routing of an outgoing uplink communication originating from the UE 1591 towards the host computer 1530.
  • a host computer 1610 comprises hardware 1615 including a communication interface 1616 configured to set up and maintain a wired or wireless connection with an interface of a different communication device of the communication system 1600.
  • the host computer 1610 further comprises processing circuitry 1618, which may have storage and/or processing capabilities.
  • the processing circuitry 1618 may comprise one or more programmable processors, application-specific integrated circuits, field programmable gate arrays or combinations of these (not shown) adapted to execute instructions.
  • the host computer 1610 further comprises software 1611, which is stored in or accessible by the host computer 1610 and executable by the processing circuitry 1618.
  • the software 1611 includes a host application 1612.
  • the host application 1612 may be operable to provide a service to a remote user, such as a UE 1630 connecting via an OTT connection 1650 terminating at the UE 1630 and the host computer 1610. In providing the service to the remote user, the host application 1612 may provide user data which is transmitted using the OTT connection 1650.
  • the communication system 1600 further includes a base station 1620 provided in a telecommunication system and comprising hardware 1625 enabling it to communicate with the host computer 1610 and with the UE 1630.
  • the hardware 1625 may include a communication interface 1626 for setting up and maintaining a wired or wireless connection with an interface of a different communication device of the communication system 1600, as well as a radio interface 1627 for setting up and maintaining at least a wireless connection 1670 with a UE 1630 located in a coverage area (not shown in Fig. 16) served by the base station
  • the communication interface 1626 may be configured to facilitate a connection 1660 to the host computer 1610.
  • the connection 1660 may be direct or it may pass through a core network (not shown in Figure 16) of the telecommunication system and/or through one or more intermediate networks outside the telecommunication system.
  • the hardware 1625 of the base station 1620 further includes processing circuitry 1628, which may comprise one or more programmable processors, application-specific integrated circuits, field programmable gate arrays or combinations of these (not shown) adapted to execute instructions.
  • the base station 1620 further has software 1621 stored internally or accessible via an external connection.
  • the communication system 1600 further includes the UE 1630 already referred to.
  • Its hardware 1635 may include a radio interface 1637 configured to set up and maintain a wireless connection 1670 with a base station serving a coverage area in which the UE 1630 is currently located.
  • the hardware 1635 of the UE 1630 further includes processing circuitry 1638, which may comprise one or more programmable processors, application-specific integrated circuits, field programmable gate arrays or combinations of these (not shown) adapted to execute instructions.
  • the UE 1630 further comprises software 1631, which is stored in or accessible by the UE 1630 and executable by the processing circuitry 1638.
  • the software 1631 includes a client application 1632.
  • the client application 1632 may be operable to provide a service to a human or non-human user via the UE 1630, with the support of the host computer 1610.
  • an executing host application 1612 may communicate with the executing client application 1632 via the OTT connection 1650 terminating at the UE 1630 and the host computer 1610.
  • the client application 1632 may receive request data from the host application 1612 and provide user data in response to the request data.
  • the OTT connection 1650 may transfer both the request data and the user data.
  • the client application 1632 may interact with the user to generate the user data that it provides.
  • the host computer 1610, base station 1620 and UE 1630 illustrated in Fig. 16 may be identical to the host computer 1530, one of the base stations 1512a, 1512b, 1512c and one of the UEs 1591, 1592 of Fig. 15, respectively.
  • the inner workings of these entities may be as shown in Fig. 16 and independently, the surrounding network topology may be that of Figure 15.
  • the OTT connection 1650 has been drawn abstractly to illustrate the communication between the host computer 1610 and the use equipment 1630 via the base station 1620, without explicit reference to any intermediary devices and the precise routing of messages via these devices.
  • Network infrastructure may determine the routing, which it may be configured to hide from the UE 1630 or from the service provider operating the host computer 1610, or both. While the OTT connection 1650 is active, the network infrastructure may further take decisions by which it dynamically changes the routing (e.g., on the basis of load balancing consideration or reconfiguration of the network) .
  • the wireless connection 1670 between the UE 1630 and the base station 1620 is in accordance with the teachings of the embodiments described throughout this disclosure.
  • One or more of the various embodiments improve the performance of OTT services provided to the UE 1630 using the OTT connection 1650, in which the wireless connection 1670 forms the last segment. More precisely, the teachings of these embodiments may improve the channel throughput and thereby provide benefits such as improved user data rate.
  • a measurement procedure may be provided for the purpose of monitoring data rate, latency and other factors on which the one or more embodiments improve.
  • the measurement procedure and/or the network functionality for reconfiguring the OTT connection 1650 may be implemented in the software 1611 of the host computer 1610 or in the software 1631 of the UE 1630, or both.
  • sensors (not shown) may be deployed in or in association with communication devices through which the OTT connection 1650 passes; the sensors may participate in the measurement procedure by supplying values of the monitored quantities exemplified above, or supplying values of other physical quantities from which software 1611, 1631 may compute or estimate the monitored quantities.
  • the reconfiguring of the OTT connection 1650 may include message format, retransmission settings, preferred routing etc.; the reconfiguring need not affect the base station 1620, and it may be unknown or imperceptible to the base station 1620. Such procedures and functionalities may be known and practiced in the art.
  • measurements may involve proprietary UE signaling facilitating the host computer’s 1610 measurements of throughput, propagation times, latency and the like.
  • the measurements may be implemented in that the software 1611, 1631 causes messages to be transmitted, in particular empty or ‘dummy’ messages, using the OTT connection 1650 while it monitors propagation times, errors etc.
  • Fig. 17 is a flowchart illustrating a method implemented in a communication system, in accordance with one embodiment.
  • the communication system includes a host computer, a base station and a UE which may be those described with reference to Figs. 15 and 16. For simplicity of the present disclosure, only drawing references to Fig. 17 will be included in this section.
  • the host computer provides user data.
  • the host computer provides the user data by executing a host application.
  • the host computer initiates a transmission carrying the user data to the UE.
  • the base station transmits to the UE the user data which was carried in the transmission that the host computer initiated, in accordance with the teachings of the embodiments described throughout this disclosure.
  • the UE executes a client application associated with the host application executed by the host computer.
  • Fig. 18 is a flowchart illustrating a method implemented in a communication system, in accordance with one embodiment.
  • the communication system includes a host computer, a base station and a UE which may be those described with reference to Figs. 15 and 16. For simplicity of the present disclosure, only drawing references to Fig. 18 will be included in this section.
  • the host computer provides user data.
  • the host computer provides the user data by executing a host application.
  • the host computer initiates a transmission carrying the user data to the UE. The transmission may pass via the base station, in accordance with the teachings of the embodiments described throughout this disclosure.
  • the UE receives the user data carried in the transmission.
  • Fig. 19 is a flowchart illustrating a method implemented in a communication system, in accordance with one embodiment.
  • the communication system includes a host computer, a base station and a UE which may be those described with reference to Figs. 15 and 16. For simplicity of the present disclosure, only drawing references to Fig. 19 will be included in this section.
  • the UE receives input data provided by the host computer.
  • the UE provides user data.
  • the UE provides the user data by executing a client application.
  • the UE executes a client application which provides the user data in reaction to the received input data provided by the host computer.
  • the executed client application may further consider user input received from the user.
  • the UE initiates, in an optional third substep 1930, transmission of the user data to the host computer.
  • the host computer receives the user data transmitted from the UE, in accordance with the teachings of the embodiments described throughout this disclosure.
  • Fig. 20 is a flowchart illustrating a method implemented in a communication system, in accordance with one embodiment.
  • the communication system includes a host computer, a base station and a UE which may be those described with reference to Figs. 15 and 16. For simplicity of the present disclosure, only drawing references to Fig. 20 will be included in this section.
  • the base station receives user data from the UE.
  • the base station initiates transmission of the received user data to the host computer.
  • the host computer receives the user data carried in the transmission initiated by the base station.

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  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Signal Processing (AREA)
  • Computer Networks & Wireless Communication (AREA)
  • Mobile Radio Communication Systems (AREA)

Abstract

La présente divulgation concerne un procédé (400) dans un dispositif réseau. Le procédé (400) consiste à : déterminer (410) un premier faisceau de signal de référence sonore, SRS, de domaine temporel destiné à recevoir un SRS en provenance d'un dispositif terminal, le premier faisceau SRS de domaine temporel correspondant à un faisceau de données de domaine temporel à utiliser pour une transmission de données au dispositif terminal ; et transmettre (420), au dispositif terminal, un message de signalisation indiquant une ressource destinée à être utilisée par le dispositif terminal pour transmettre le SRS, la ressource étant dans un premier symbole mis en correspondance avec le premier faisceau SRS de domaine temporel.
PCT/CN2023/130963 2023-11-10 2023-11-10 Dispositif réseau, dispositif terminal et procédés associés pour une formation de faisceau hybride améliorée Pending WO2025097422A1 (fr)

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US20160337916A1 (en) * 2014-01-17 2016-11-17 Idac Holdings, Inc. 3gpp mmw access link system architecture
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