WO2025218032A1

WO2025218032A1 - Method and device for signal processing, and communication apparatus

Info

Publication number: WO2025218032A1
Application number: PCT/CN2024/104709
Authority: WO
Inventors: Liqing Zhang; Ming Jia; Jianglei Ma; Wen Tong
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2024-04-17
Filing date: 2024-07-10
Publication date: 2025-10-23
Anticipated expiration: 2026-10-17

Abstract

A method for signal processing, includes: receiving information for indicating one or more parameters; and performing spectrum shifting by moving mapping of the first block of output components away from the first block of subcarriers based on the information, Since the spectrum shifting is performed by moving mapping of the first block of output components away from the first block of subcarriers, it may be possible to realize the adjustment or re-allocation of carrier components and in turn realize spectrum swapping. Therefore, a spectrum may execute a single CC operation after undergoing spectrum swapping.

Description

METHOD AND DEVICE FOR SIGNAL PROCESSING, AND COMMUNICATION APPARATUS

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims priority to, U.S. Provisional Application No.: 63/635, 180, filed on April 17, 2024, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates generally to wireless communication technology, and particularly to a method for signal processing, a device for signal processing, and a communication apparatus.

BACKGROUND

Wireless communications system such as fourth generation (4G) system (for example, Long-Term Evolution (LTE) system) , fifth generation (5G) system (for example, New Radio (NR) system) have been deployed to provide various types of applications, such as message, voice, video and other data.

This background information is provided to reveal information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present disclosure. No admission is necessarily intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present disclosure.

SUMMARY

In a first aspect, a method for signal processing is provided. The method may be performed by a user equipment (UE) or a chip of the UE, or a base station or a chip of the base station. The method includes: obtaining information for indicating one or more parameters, wherein the one or more parameters include at least one of following parameters: a first block of output components mapping to a first block of subcarriers as input to Fourier Transform (FT) , a subcarrier shift offset, or an FT size, wherein the first block of output components belong to a plurality of output components, and the first block of subcarriers belongs to a plurality of subcarriers, wherein the plurality of subcarriers is in a carrier component (CC) , and wherein remaining output components of the plurality of output components map to remaining subcarriers of the plurality of subcarriers; and performing spectrum shifting by moving mapping of the first block of output components away from the first block of subcarriers based on the information.

Based on the method for signal processing in the first aspect, since the spectrum shifting is performed by moving mapping of the first block of output components away from the first block of subcarriers, it may be possible to realize the adjustment or re-allocation of carrier components and in turn realize spectrum swapping. Therefore, a spectrum may execute a single CC operation after undergoing spectrum swapping.

In a possible implementation, when the method is performed by a UE, the obtaining the information comprises receiving the information.

In a possible implementation, when the method is performed by a UE, the performing spectrum shifting may be for uplink transmission, for example, PUSCH transmission.

In a possible implementation, when the method is performed by a base station, the performing spectrum shifting may be for downlink transmission, for example, PDSCH transmission.

In a possible implementation, moving the mapping of the first block of output components away from the first block of subcarriers includes: moving the mapping of the first block of output components to a second block of subcarriers, wherein the second block of subcarriers is in the CC and the second block of subcarriers is not part of the plurality of subcarriers, and leaving the first block of subcarriers as zero input values.

In a possible implementation, the spectrum shifting includes cyclic shifting, wherein the remaining output components of the plurality of output components map to the remaining subcarriers of the plurality of subcarriers; and the cyclic shifting further includes the following cases that: the first block of subcarriers is located right at higher-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers, and the second block of subcarriers is located right below lower-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers; or the first block of subcarriers is located right at lower-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers, and the second block of subcarriers is located right above higher-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers. In this way, through cyclic shifting, it may be possible to realize spectrum swapping and achieve spectrum sharing with a plurality of virtual carrier components, and in turn improve the spectrum utilization efficiency.

In a possible implementation, the spectrum shifting includes direct shifting, wherein the direct shifting is moving mapping of the plurality of output components directly down or directly up from the plurality of subcarriers by a distance, wherein the distance is equal to the size of the first block of subcarriers, or the distance is equal to the subcarrier shift offset, where a value of the subcarrier shift offset is equal to or larger than the size of the first block of subcarriers. In this way, through direct shifting, it may be possible to realize spectrum swapping and achieve spectrum sharing with a plurality of virtual carrier components, and in turn improve the spectrum utilization efficiency.

In a possible implementation, the subcarrier shift offset is a value to keep spectrum shifting within the FT size. Therefore, it may ensure that the FT computation is not increased.

In a possible implementation, the information is carried via one or more of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling, Medium Access Control-Control Element (MAC-CE) , or Downlink Control Information (DCI) .

In a possible implementation, the FT comprises Inverse Fast FT (IFFT) or Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform (IDFT) .

In a possible implementation, a value of the subcarrier shift offset is configurable.

In a possible implementation, the plurality of output components is a block of Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) output components or encoded signals from a source end.

In a second aspect, a device for signal processing is provided. The device includes: a receiving unit, configured to receiving information for indicating one or more parameters, wherein the one or more parameters include at least one of following parameters: a first block of output components mapping to a first block of subcarriers as input to Fourier Transform (FT) , a subcarrier shift offset, or an FT size, wherein the first block of output components belong to a plurality of output components, and the first block of subcarriers belongs to a plurality of subcarriers, wherein the plurality of subcarriers is in a carrier component (CC) , and wherein remaining output components of the plurality of output components map to the remaining subcarriers of the plurality of subcarriers; and a performing unit, configured to send performing spectrum shifting by moving mapping of the first block of output components away from the first block of subcarriers based on the information.

In a possible implementation, the performing unit is configured to: move the mapping of the first block of output components to a second block of subcarriers, wherein the second block of subcarriers is in the CC and the second block of subcarriers is not part of the plurality of subcarriers, and leaving the first block of subcarriers as zero input values.

In a possible implementation, the spectrum shifting includes cyclic shifting, wherein the remaining output components of the plurality of output components map to the remaining subcarriers of the plurality of subcarriers; and wherein the cyclic shifting further includes: the first block of subcarriers is located right at higher-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers, and the second block of subcarriers is located right below lower-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers; or the first block of subcarriers is located right at lower-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers, and the second block of subcarriers is located right above higher-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers.

In a possible implementation, the spectrum shifting includes direct shifting, wherein the direct shifting is moving mapping of the plurality of output components directly down or directly up from the plurality of subcarriers by a distance, wherein the distance is equal to the size of the first block of subcarriers, or the distance is equal to the subcarrier shift offset, where a value of the subcarrier shift offset is equal to or larger than the size of the first block of subcarriers.

In a possible implementation, the subcarrier shift offset is a value to keep spectrum shifting within the FT size.

In a possible implementation, the FT includes Inverse Fast FT (IFFT) or Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform (IDFT) .

In a third aspect, a communication apparatus is provided. The communication apparatus includes: a communication interface configured to communicate with other network elements under the control of a processor; and the processor configured to cause the apparatus to perform the method of any one of the first aspect.

In a fourth aspect, a computer-readable storage medium is provided, which has stored thereon computer program instructions that, when executed by a processing circuit of a computer, cause the computer to implement the method of any one of the first aspect.

In a fifth aspect, a computer program product is provided, which has instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to implement the method of any one of the first aspect.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a better understanding of the various described embodiments, reference should be made to the Detailed Description below, in conjunction with the following drawings in which like reference numerals refer to corresponding parts throughout the figures.

FIG. 1 illustrates a communication system in which the present disclosure may be implemented;

FIG. 2 illustrates another communication system in which the present disclosure may be implemented;

FIG. 3 illustrates an apparatus that wirelessly communicates with at least one apparatus in a communication system, in accordance with some examples of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 illustrates a block diagram of an electronic device or apparatus, in accordance with some examples of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 illustrates a diagram of allocated carriers in one or more frequency bands among different operators with guard bands, in accordance with some examples of the present disclosure;

FIG. 6 illustrates a diagram of allocated carriers in one or more frequency bands among different RATs with guard bands, in accordance with some examples of the present disclosure;

FIG. 7 illustrates a diagram of shared single carrier and pre-defined or configured virtual CCs for different operators, in accordance with some examples of the present disclosure;

FIG. 8 illustrates a diagram of adjustable/configurable virtual CCs for different operators/RATs, in accordance with some examples of the present disclosure;

FIG. 9 illustrates a flow chart of a communication method, in accordance with some examples of the present disclosure;

FIG. 10 illustrates a flow chart of a method for signal processing, in accordance with some examples of the present disclosure;

FIG. 11 illustrates a diagram of spectrum swapping in a virtual CC1 for spectrum sharing with a virtual CC2, in accordance with some examples of the present disclosure;

FIG. 12 illustrates a diagram of spectrum cyclic shifting in a virtual CC, in accordance with some examples of the present disclosure;

FIG. 13 illustrates a diagram of spectrum cyclic shifting in a virtual CC, in accordance with some examples of the present disclosure;

FIG. 14 illustrates a diagram of spectrum direct shifting in a virtual CC, in accordance with some examples of the present disclosure;

FIG. 15 illustrates a diagram of spectrum direct shifting in a virtual CC, in accordance with some examples of the present disclosure;

FIG. 16 illustrates a diagram of spectrum direct shifting in a virtual CC, in accordance with some examples of the present disclosure;

FIG. 17 illustrates a structural diagram of a device for signal processing, in accordance with some examples of the present disclosure; and

FIG. 18 illustrates a block diagram of a communication apparatus, in accordance with some examples of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Technical solutions in some embodiments of the present disclosure will be described clearly and completely with reference to the accompanying drawings below. However, the described embodiments are merely some but not all embodiments of the present disclosure. All other embodiments obtained by a person of ordinary skill in the art based on the embodiments of the present disclosure shall be included in the protection scope of the present disclosure.

Unless the context requires otherwise, throughout the description and the claims, the term "comprise" and other forms thereof such as the third-person singular form "comprises" and the present participle form "comprising" are construed as open and inclusive meaning, i.e., "including, but not limited to" . In the description, the terms such as "one embodiment" , "some embodiments" , "exemplary embodiments" , "example" , "specific example" or "some examples" are intended to indicate that specific features, structures, materials or characteristics related to the embodiment (s) or example (s) are included in at least one embodiment or example of the present disclosure. Schematic representations of the above terms do not necessarily refer to the same embodiment (s) or example (s) . In addition, the specific features, structures, materials or characteristics may be included in any one or more embodiments or examples in any suitable manner.

Some embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method for signal processing. The method is applied in the wireless communications system. The main purpose of the method is to realize spectrum shifting through signal processing, and to realize spectrum sharing with a plurality of virtual carrier components and improve spectrum utilization efficiency. Moreover, the terms “spectrum cyclic shifting” , “cyclic shifting” and “cyclic spectrum shifting” represent the same thing and are exchangeable in usage in the following disclosures. Similarly, the terms “spectrum direct shifting” , “direct shifting” and “direct spectrum shifting” represent the same thing and are exchangeable in usage in the following disclosures.

In wireless communications, spectrum resource is scarce and very expensive to use. Available spectrum may comprise multiple frequency bands from low frequency bands to high frequency bands. The spectrum used in long term evolution (LTE) and new radio (NR) comprises various frequency bands or/and various carrier (or components carriers) in frequency band.

To avoid signal interference or leakage, guard bands are required between adjacent carriers used by different operators or radio access technologies (RATs) such as 4G, 5G, future generation/network, etc., or even within the same operators with same RAT.

The width of a guard band (also known as a guard frequency or guard channel) between two carriers depends on various factors, including the specific frequency band, subcarrier spacing, and regulatory requirements. For example, an LTE channel having a total bandwidth of 20 MHz may have a guard band around 1 MHz on each side (approximately 5%of the total bandwidth) , and a NR channel may have a guard band associated with frequency band and numerology with reduced size of a guard band between carriers or between carrier components in frequency band.

Firstly, some of the technical terms involved in the technical solutions provided in embodiments of the present disclosure will be explained below.

In wireless communications, various frequency bands or/and various carrier in frequency band will be used. These frequency bands may include:

-low frequency bands (Sub-6 GHz) , also known as frequency range 1 (FR1) : Primarily used for coverage and capacity.

-high frequency bands (Above 6 GHz) , also known as FR2, which includes frequency bands from 24.25 GHz to 71.0 GHz: Suitable for high data rates but with limited coverage.

-upper mid-band from 7 GHz to 24 GHz, also known as FR3: Balancing coverage and capacity. This is future generation/network intended frequency bands and these bands are expected to balance coverage, capacity, and deployment for typical scenarios, offering strong benefits when considering new trends such as non-terrestrial network (NTN) , reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) , and integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) .

For example, the method for signal processing provided in the embodiments of the present disclosure may be applied in the communication system shown in FIG. 1. Referring to FIG. 1, as an illustrative example without limitation, a simplified schematic illustration of a communication system is provided. The communication system 100 (which may be a wireless system) comprises a radio access network 120. The radio access network (RAN) 120 may be a next generation (e.g. future generation/network or later) radio access network, or a legacy (e.g. 5G, 4G, 3G or 2nd generation (2G) ) radio access network. One or more communication electronic device (ED) 110a, 110b, 110c, 110d, 110e, 110f, 110g, 110h, 110i, 110j (generically referred to as 110) may be interconnected to one another or connected to one or more network nodes (170a, 170b, generically referred to as 170) in the radio access network 120. A core network 130 may be a part of the communication system and may be dependent or independent of the radio access technology used in the communication system 100. The communication system 100 may also comprise a public switched telephone network (PSTN) 140, the internet 150, and other networks 160.

In general, the communication system 100 enables multiple wireless or wired elements to communicate data and other content. The communication system 100 may provide content, such as voice, data, video, and/or text, via broadcast, multicast, groupcast, unicast, etc. And the communication system 100 may provide a wide range of communication services and applications (such as earth monitoring, remote sensing, passive sensing and positioning, navigation and tracking, autonomous delivery and mobility, etc. ) The services and/or applications may be mobile broadband (MBB) services, ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) services, or machine type communication (MTC) services.

The communication system 100 may operate by sharing resources, such as carrier spectrum bandwidth, between its constituent elements.

The communication system 100 may include a terrestrial communication system and/or a non-terrestrial communication system. The communication system 100 may provide a high degree of availability and robustness through a joint operation of a terrestrial communication system and a non-terrestrial communication system. For example, integrating a non-terrestrial communication system (or components thereof) into a terrestrial communication system can result in what may be considered a heterogeneous network comprising multiple layers. The heterogeneous network may achieve better overall performance through efficient multi-link joint operation, more flexible functionality sharing, and faster physical layer link switching between terrestrial networks and non-terrestrial networks.

The terrestrial communication system and the non-terrestrial communication system could be considered sub-systems of the communication system.

Same as in the example shown in FIG. 1, in the example shown in FIG. 2, the communication system 100 may include ED 110a, 110b, 110c, 110d (generically referred to as ED 110) , and RAN 120a, 120b. In addition, the communication system 100 may also include a non-terrestrial communication network 120c. The communication system 100 may also include one or more of a core network 130, a public switched telephone network (PSTN) 140, the Internet 150, and other networks 160. The RANs 120a, 120b include respective RAN nodes such as base stations (BSs) 170a, 170b, which may be generically referred to as terrestrial transmit and receive points (T-TRPs) 170a, 170b. In one implementation, the non-terrestrial communication network 120c includes a RAN node such as an access node (or base station) 172, which may be generically referred to as a non-terrestrial transmit and receive point (NT-TRP) 172. As may be surmised on the basis of similarity in reference numerals, the non-terrestrial communication network 120c may be considered to be a radio access network, with operational aspects in common with the RANs 120a, 120b. In another implementations, the non-terrestrial communication network 120c may include at least one non-terrestrial network (NTN) device and at least one corresponding terrestrial network device, wherein the at least one non-terrestrial network device works as a transport layer device and the at least one corresponding terrestrial network device works as a RAN node, which communicates with the ED via the non-terrestrial network device. In addition, there may be a NTN gateway in the ground (i.e., referred as a terrestrial network device) also as a transport layer device to communication with both the NTN device, and the RAN node communicates with the ED via the NTN device and the NTN gateway. In some implementations, the NTN gateway and the RAN node may be located in the same device.

Any ED 110 may be alternatively or additionally configured to interface, access, or communicate with any T-TRP 170a, 170b and NT-TRP 172, the Internet 150, the core network 130, the PSTN 140, the other networks 160, or any combination of the preceding. In some examples, ED 110a may communicate an uplink (UL) and/or downlink (DL) transmission over a terrestrial air interface 190a with T-TRP 170a. In some examples, the EDs 110a, 110b, 110c, and 110d may also communicate directly with one another via one or more sidelink (SL) air interfaces 190b. In some examples, ED 110d may communicate an uplink and/or downlink transmission over a non-terrestrial air interface 190c with NT-TRP 172.

The air interfaces 190a and 190b may use similar communication technology, such as any suitable radio access technology. For example, the communication system 100 may implement one or more channel access methods, such as code division multiple access (CDMA) , space division multiple access (SDMA) , time division multiple access (TDMA) , frequency division multiple access (FDMA) , orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) , or single-carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA, also known as discrete Fourier transform spread OFDMA, DFT-s-OFDMA) in the air interfaces 190a and 190b. The air interfaces 190a and 190b may utilize other higher dimension signal spaces, which may involve a combination of orthogonal and/or non-orthogonal dimensions.

The non-terrestrial air interface 190c can enable communication between the ED 110d and one or multiple NT-TRPs 172 via a wireless link or simply a link. For some examples, the link is a dedicated connection for unicast transmission, a connection for broadcast transmission, or a connection between a group of EDs 110 and one or multiple NT-TRPs 172 for multicast transmission.

The RANs 120a and 120b are in communication with the core network 130 to provide the EDs 110a 110b, and 110c with various services such as voice, data, and other services. The RANs 120a and 120b and/or the core network 130 may be in direct or indirect communication with one or more other RANs (not shown) , which may or may not be directly served by core network 130, and may or may not employ the same radio access technology as RAN 120a, RAN 120b or both. The core network 130 may also serve as a gateway access between (i) the RANs 120a and 120b or EDs 110a 110b, and 110c or both, and (ii) other networks (such as the PSTN 140, the Internet 150, and the other networks 160) . In addition, some or all of the EDs 110a 110b, and 110c may include functionality for communicating with different wireless networks over different wireless links using different wireless technologies and/or protocols. Instead of wireless communication (or in addition thereto) , the EDs 110a 110b, and 110c may communicate via wired communication channels to a service provider or switch (not shown) , and to the Internet 150. PSTN 140 may include circuit switched telephone networks for providing plain old telephone service (POTS) . Internet 150 may include a network of computers and subnets (intranets) or both, and incorporate protocols, such as Internet Protocol (IP) , Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) , User Datagram Protocol (UDP) . EDs 110a 110b, and 110c may be multimode devices capable of operation according to multiple radio access technologies, and incorporate multiple transceivers necessary to support such.

In addition, the communication system 100 may comprising a sensing agent (not shown in the figure) to manage the sensed data from ED110 and or the T-TRP 170 and/or NT-TRP 172. In one implementation, the sensing agent is located in the T-TRP 170 and/or NT-TRP 172. In another implementation, the sensing agent is a separate node which has interface to communicate with the core network 130 and/or the RAN 120 (e.g., the T-TRP 170 and/or NT-TRP 172) .

FIG. 3 illustrates example of an Apparatus 310 wirelessly communicating with at least one of two apparatuses (e.g., Apparatus 320a and Apparatus 320b, referred as Apparatus 320) in a communication system, e.g., the communication system 100, according to one embodiment. The Apparatus 310 may be a UE (e.g., ED 110 in FIG. 3) . The Apparatus 320a may be a terrestrial network device (e.g., T-TRP 170 as shown in FIG. 3) , and Apparatus 320b may be a non-terrestrial network device (e.g., NT-TRP 172 as shown in FIG. 3) . However, this is not necessary. For example, Apparatus 320a may be a NT-TRP, and 320b may be a T-TRP, both Apparatus 320a and 320b may be T-TRPs or NT-TRPs, according to present disclosure. In the following, the ED 110 as an example of the Apparatus 310 is described, and T-TRP 170 as an example of Apparatus 320a is described, and NT-TRP 172 as an example of Apparatus 320a is described. Although only one Apparatus 310, one Apparatus 320a and one Apparatus 320b Please note that the number of Apparatus 310 (e.g. ED 110) could be one or more, and the number of Apparatus 320a and/or 320b could be one or more. For example, one ED110 may be served by only one T-TRP 170 (or one NT-TRP172) , by more than one T-TRP 170, by more than one NT-TRP 172, or by one or more T-TRP 170 and one or more NT-TRP172.

The ED 110 is used to connect persons, objects, machines, etc. The ED 110 may be widely used in various scenarios including, for example, cellular communications, device-to-device (D2D) , vehicle to everything (V2X) , peer-to-peer (P2P) , machine-to-machine (M2M) , MTC, internet of things (IoT) , virtual reality (VR) , augmented reality (AR) , mixed reality (MR) , metaverse, digital twin, industrial control, self-driving, remote medical, smart grid, smart furniture, smart office, smart wearable, smart transportation, smart city, drones, robots, remote sensing, passive sensing, positioning, navigation and tracking, autonomous delivery and mobility, etc.

Each ED 110 represents any suitable end user device for wireless operation and may include such devices (or may be referred to but not limited to) as a user equipment/terminal device (UE) , a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) , a mobile station, a fixed or mobile subscriber unit, a cellular telephone, a station (STA) , a MTC device, a personal digital assistant (PDA) , a smartphone, a laptop, a computer, a tablet, a wireless sensor, a consumer electronics device, a smart book, a vehicle, a car, a truck, a bus, a train, or an IoT device, wearable devices (such as a watch, a pair of glasses, head mounted equipment, etc. ) , an industrial device, or an apparatus in (e.g. communication module, modem, or chip) or comprising the forgoing devices, among other possibilities. Future generation EDs 110 may be referred to using other terms. The base station 170a and 170b is a T-TRP and will hereafter be referred to as T-TRP 170. Also shown in FIG. 3, a non-terrestrial (NT) device will hereafter be referred to as NT-TRP 172. Each ED 110 connected to T-TRP 170 and/or NT-TRP 172 can be dynamically or semi-statically turned-on (i.e., established, activated, or enabled) , turned-off (i.e., released, deactivated, or disabled) and/or configured in response to one of more of: connection availability and connection necessity.

As shown in FIG. 3, the ED 110 include at least one processor 210. Only one processor 210 is illustrated to avoid congestion in the drawing. The ED 110 may further include a transmitter 201 and a receiver 203 coupled to one or more antennas 204. Only one antenna 204 is illustrated to avoid congestion in the drawing. One, some, or all of the antennas 204 may alternatively be panels. The transmitter 201 and the receiver 203 may be integrated, e.g. as a transceiver. The transceiver is configured to modulate data or other content for transmission by at least one antenna 204 or network interface controller (NIC) . The transceiver is also configured to demodulate data or other content received by the at least one antenna 204. Each transceiver includes any suitable structure for generating signals for wireless or wired transmission and/or processing signals received wirelessly or by wire. Each antenna 204 includes any suitable structure for transmitting and/or receiving wireless or wired signals. The ED 110 may include at least one memory 208. Only the transmitter 201, receiver 203, processor 210, memory 208, and antenna 204 is illustrated for simplicity, but the ED 110 may include one or more other components.

The memory 208 stores instructions. The memory 208 may also stores data used, generated, or collected by the ED 110. For example, the memory 208 could store software instructions or modules configured to implement some or all of the functionality and/or embodiments described herein and that are executed by one or more processing unit (s) (e.g., a processor 210) . Each memory 208 includes any suitable volatile and/or non-volatile storage and retrieval device (s) . Any suitable type of memory may be used, such as random access memory (RAM) , read only memory (ROM) , hard disk, optical disc, subscriber identity module (SIM) card, memory stick, secure digital (SD) memory card, on-processor cache, and the like.

The ED 110 may further include one or more input/output devices (not shown) or interfaces (such as a wired interface to the Internet 150 in FIG. 1) . The input/output devices or interfaces permit interaction with a user or other devices in the network. Each input/output device or interface includes any suitable structure for providing information to or receiving information from a user, and/or for network interface communications. Suitable structures include, for example, a speaker, microphone, keypad, keyboard, display, touch screen, etc.

The processor 210 performs (or controlling the ED110 to perform) operations described herein as being performed by the ED110. As illustrated below and elsewhere in the present disclosure. For example, the processor 210 performs or controls the ED110 to perform receiving transport blocks (TBs) , using a resource for decoding of one of the received TBs, releasing the resource for decoding of another of the received TBs, and/or receiving configuration information configuring a resource. In details, the operation may include those operations related to preparing a transmission for uplink transmission to the NT-TRP 172 and/or the T-TRP 170; those operations related to processing downlink transmissions received from the NT-TRP 172 and/or the T-TRP 170; and those operations related to processing sidelink transmission to and from another ED 110. Processing operations related to preparing a transmission for uplink transmission may include operations such as encoding, modulating, transmit beamforming, and generating symbols for transmission. Processing operations related to processing downlink transmissions may include operations such as receive beamforming, demodulating and decoding received symbols. Processing operations related to processing sidelink transmissions may include operations such as transmit/receive beamforming, modulating/demodulating and encoding/decoding symbols. Depending upon the embodiment, a downlink transmission may be received by the receiver 203, possibly using receive beamforming, and the processor 210 may extract signaling from the downlink transmission (e.g. by detecting and/or decoding the signaling) . An example of signaling may be a reference signal transmitted by the NT-TRP 172 and/or by the T-TRP 170. In some embodiments, the processor 210 implements the transmit beamforming and/or the receive beamforming based on the indication of beam direction, e.g. beam angle information (BAI) , received from the T-TRP 170. In some embodiments, the processor 210 may perform operations relating to network access (e.g. initial access) and/or downlink synchronization, such as operations relating to detecting a synchronization sequence, decoding and obtaining the system information, etc. In some embodiments, the processor 210 may perform channel estimation, e.g. using a reference signal received from the NT-TRP 172 and/or from the T-TRP 170.

Although not illustrated, the processor 210 may form part of the transmitter 201 and/or part of the receiver 203. Although not illustrated, the memory 208 may form part of the processor 210.

The processor 210, the processing components of the transmitter 201, and the processing components of the receiver 203 may each be implemented by the same or different one or more processors that are configured to execute instructions stored in a memory (e.g. in the memory 208) . Alternatively, some or all of the processor 210, the processing components of the transmitter 201, and the processing components of the receiver 203 may each be implemented using dedicated circuitry, such as a programmed field-programmable gate array (FPGA) , an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) , or a hardware accelerator such as a graphics processing unit (GPU) or an artificial intelligence (AI) accelerator.

In some implementations, the ED 110 may an apparatus (also called component) for example, communication module, modem, chip, or chipset, it includes at least one processor 210, and an interface or at least one pin. In this scenario, the transmitter 201 and receiver 203 may be replaced by the interface or at least one pin, wherein the interface or at least one pin is to connect the apparatus (e.g., chip) and other apparatus (e.g., chip, memory, or bus) . Accordingly, the transmitting information to the NT-TRP 172 and/or the T-TRP 170 and/or another ED 110 may be referred as transmitting information to the interface or at least one pin, or as transmitting information to the NT-TRP 172 and/or the T-TRP 170 and/or another ED 110 via the interface or at least one pin, and receiving information from the NT-TRP 172 and/or the T-TRP 170 and/or another ED 110 may be referred as receiving information from the interface or at least one pin, or as receiving information from the NT-TRP 172 and/or the T-TRP 170 and/or another ED 110 via the interface or at least one pin. The information may include control signaling and/or data.

As shown in FIG. 3, the T-TRP 170 include at least one processor 260. Only one processor 260 is illustrated to avoid congestion in the drawing. The T-TRP 170 may further include at least one transmitter 252 and at least one receiver 254 coupled to one or more antennas 256. Only one antenna 256 is illustrated to avoid congestion in the drawing. One, some, or all of the antennas 256 may alternatively be panels. The transmitter 252 and the receiver 254 may be integrated as a transceiver. The T-TRP 170 may further include at least one memory 258. The T-TRP 170 may further include scheduler 253. Only the transmitter 252, receiver 254, processor 260, memory 258, antenna 256 and scheduler 253 are illustrated for simplicity, but the T-TRP may include one or more other components.

The T-TRP 170 may be known by other names in some implementations, such as a base station, a base transceiver station (BTS) , a radio base station, a network node, a network device, a device on the network side, a transmit/receive node, a Node B, an evolved NodeB (eNodeB or eNB) , a Home eNodeB, a next Generation NodeB (gNB) , a transmission point (TP) , a site controller, an access point (AP) , a wireless router, a relay station, a terrestrial node, a terrestrial network device, a terrestrial base station, a base band unit (BBU) , a remote radio unit (RRU) , an active antenna unit (AAU) , a remote radio head (RRH) , a central unit (CU) , a distributed unit (DU) , a positioning node, among other possibilities. The T-TRP 170 may be a macro base station (BS) , a pico BS, a relay node, a donor node, or the like, or combinations thereof. The T-TRP 170 may refer to the forgoing devices or refer to apparatus (e.g. a communication module, a modem, or a chip) in the forgoing devices.

In some embodiments, the parts of the T-TRP 170 may be distributed. For example, some of the modules of the T-TRP 170 may be located remote from the equipment that houses the antennas 256 for the T-TRP 170, and may be coupled to the equipment that houses the antennas 256 over a communication link (not shown) sometimes known as front haul, such as common public radio interface (CPRI) . Therefore, in some embodiments, the term T-TRP 170 may also refer to modules on the network side that perform processing operations, such as determining the location of the ED 110, resource allocation (scheduling) , message generation, and encoding/decoding, and that are not necessarily part of the equipment that houses the antennas 256 of the T-TRP 170. The modules may also be coupled to other T-TRPs. In some embodiments, the T-TRP 170 may actually be a plurality of T-TRPs that are operating together to serve the ED 110, e.g. through the use of coordinated multipoint transmissions.

The processor 260 performs operations including those related to: preparing a transmission for downlink transmission to the ED 110, processing an uplink transmission received from the ED 110, preparing a transmission for backhaul transmission to the T-TRP 170 and/or NT-TRP 172, and processing a transmission received over backhaul from the T-TRP 170 and/or NT-TRP 172. Processing operations related to preparing a transmission for downlink or backhaul transmission may include operations such as encoding, modulating, precoding (e.g. multiple input multiple output (MIMO) precoding) , transmit beamforming, and generating symbols for transmission. Processing operations related to processing received transmissions in the uplink or over backhaul may include operations such as receive beamforming, demodulating received symbols, and decoding received symbols. The processor 260 may also perform operations relating to network access (e.g. initial access) and/or downlink synchronization, such as generating the content of synchronization signal blocks (SSBs) , generating the system information, etc. In some embodiments, the processor 260 also generates an indication of beam direction, e.g. BAI, which may be scheduled for transmission by a scheduler 253. The processor 260 performs other network-side processing operations described herein, such as determining the location of the ED 110, determining where to deploy the NT-TRP 172, etc. In some embodiments, the processor 260 may generate signaling, e.g. to configure one or more parameters of the ED 110 and/or one or more parameters of the NT-TRP 172. Any signaling generated by the processor 260 is sent by the transmitter 252.

The scheduler 253 may be coupled to the processor 260 or integrated in the processor 260. The scheduler 253 may be included within or operated separately from the T-TRP 170. The scheduler 253 may schedule uplink, downlink, sidelink, and/or backhaul transmissions, including issuing scheduling grants and/or configuring scheduling-free (e.g., “configured grant” ) resources.

The memory 258 is configured to store information, and optionally data. The memory 258 stores instructions and data used, generated, or collected by the T-TRP 170. For example, the memory 258 could store software instructions or modules configured to implement some or all of the functionality and/or embodiments described herein and that are executed by the processor 260.

Although not illustrated, the processor 260 may form part of the transmitter 252 and/or part of the receiver 254. Also, although not illustrated, the processor 260 may implement the scheduler 253. Although not illustrated, the memory 258 may form part of the processor 260.

The processor 260, the scheduler 253, the processing components of the transmitter 252, and the processing components of the receiver 254 may each be implemented by the same or different one or more processors that are configured to execute instructions stored in a memory, e.g. in the memory 258. Alternatively, some or all of the processor 260, the scheduler 253, the processing components of the transmitter 252, and the processing components of the receiver 254 may be implemented using dedicated circuitry, such as a programmed FPGA, a hardware accelerator (e.g., a GPU or AI accelerator) , or an ASIC.

When the T-TRP 170 is an apparatus (also called as component, for example, communication module, modem, chip, or chipset in a device, it includes at least one processor, and an interface or at least one pin. In this scenario, the transmitter 252 and receiver 254 may be replaced by the interface or at least one pin, wherein the interface or at least one pin is to connect the apparatus (e.g., chip) and other apparatus (e.g., chip, memory, or bus) . Accordingly, the transmitting information to the NT-TRP 172 and/or the T-TRP 170 and/or ED 110 may be referred as transmitting information to the interface or at least one pin, and receiving information from the NT-TRP 172 and/or the T-TRP 170 and/or ED 110 may be referred as receiving information from the interface or at least one pin. The information may include control signaling and/or data.

Although the NT-TRP 172 is illustrated as a drone only as an example, the NT-TRP 172 may be implemented in any suitable non-terrestrial form, such as satellites and high altitude platforms, including international mobile telecommunication base stations and unmanned aerial vehicles, for example. Also, the NT-TRP 172 may be known by other names in some implementations, such as a non-terrestrial node, a non-terrestrial network device, or a non-terrestrial base station.

As shown in FIG. 3, The T-TRP 170 may further include at least one transmitter 252 and at least one receiver 254 coupled to one or more antennas 256. Only one antenna 256 is illustrated to avoid congestion in the drawing. One, some, or all of the antennas 256 may alternatively be panels. The transmitter 252 and the receiver 254 may be integrated as a transceiver. The T-TRP 170 may further include at least one memory 258. The T-TRP 170 may further include scheduler 253. Only the transmitter 252, receiver 254, processor 260, memory 258, antenna 256 and scheduler 253 are illustrated for simplicity, but the T-TRP may include one or more other components.

As shown in FIG. 3, the NT-TRP 172 include at least one processor 276. Only one processor 276 is illustrated to avoid congestion in the drawing. The NT-TRP 172 may include a transmitter 272 and a receiver 274 coupled to one or more antennas 280. Only one antenna 280 is illustrated to avoid congestion in the drawing. One, some, or all of the antennas may alternatively be panels. The transmitter 272 and the receiver 274 may be integrated as a transceiver. The NT-TRP 172 may further include at least one memory 278. The NT-TRP 172 may further include scheduler. Only the transmitter 272, receiver 274, processor 276, memory 278, antenna 280 are illustrated for simplicity, but the NT-TRP may include one or more other components.

The NT-TRP 172 include a processor 276 for performing operations including those related to: preparing a transmission for downlink transmission to the ED 110, processing an uplink transmission received from the ED 110, preparing a transmission for backhaul transmission to T-TRP 170 and/or another NT-TRP 172, and processing a transmission received over backhaul from the T-TRP 170 and/or another NT-TRP 172. Processing operations related to preparing a transmission for downlink or backhaul transmission may include operations such as encoding, modulating, precoding (e.g. MIMO precoding) , transmit beamforming, and generating symbols for transmission. Processing operations related to processing received transmissions in the uplink or over backhaul may include operations such as receive beamforming, demodulating received symbols, and decoding received symbols. In some embodiments, the processor 276 implements the transmit beamforming and/or receive beamforming based on beam direction information (e.g. BAI) received from the T-TRP 170. In some embodiments, the processor 276 may generate signaling, e.g. to configure one or more parameters of the ED 110. In some embodiments, the NT-TRP 172 implements physical layer processing, but does not implement higher layer functions such as functions at the medium access control (MAC) or radio link control (RLC) layer. As this is only an example, more generally, the NT-TRP 172 may implement higher layer functions in addition to physical layer processing.

The memory 278 is configured to store information and optionally data. The memory 258 stores instructions and data used, generated, or collected by the NT-TRP 172. For example, the memory 278 could store software instructions or modules configured to implement some or all of the functionality and/or embodiments described herein and that are executed by the processor 276.

Although not illustrated, the processor 276 may form part of the transmitter 272 and/or part of the receiver 274. Although not illustrated, the memory 278 may form part of the processor 276.

The processor 276, the processing components of the transmitter 272, and the processing components of the receiver 274 may each be implemented by the same or different one or more processors that are configured to execute instructions stored in a memory, e.g. in the memory 278. Alternatively, some or all of the processor 276, the processing components of the transmitter 272, and the processing components of the receiver 274 may be implemented using dedicated circuitry, such as a programmed FPGA, a hardware accelerator (e.g., a GPU or AI accelerator) , or an ASIC. In some embodiments, the NT-TRP 172 may actually be a plurality of NT-TRPs that are operating together to serve the ED 110, e.g. through coordinated multipoint transmissions.

When the NT-TRP 172 is an apparatus (e.g. communication module, modem, chip, or chipset) in a device, it includes at least one processor, and an interface or at least one pin. In this scenario, the transmitter 272 and receiver 257 may be replaced by the interface or at least one pin, wherein the interface or at least one pin is to connect the apparatus (e.g., chip) and other apparatus (e.g., chip, memory, or bus) . Accordingly, the transmitting information to the T-TRP 170 and/or another NT-TRP 172 and/or ED 110 may be referred as transmitting information to the interface or at least one pin, and receiving information from the T-TRP 170 and/or another NT-TRP 172 and/or ED 110 may be referred as receiving information from the interface or at least one pin. The information may include control signaling and/or data.

Note that “transmit/receive point (TRP) ” , as used herein, may refer to a T-TRP or a NT-TRP. A T-TRP may alternatively be called a terrestrial network TRP ( “TN TRP” ) and a NT-TRP may alternatively be called a non-terrestrial network TRP ( “NTN TRP” ) . The T-TRP 170, the NT-TRP 172, and/or the ED 110 may include other components, but these have been omitted for the sake of clarity.

Note that “signaling” , as used herein, may alternatively be called control signaling, control message, control information, or message for simplicity. Signaling between a BS (e.g., the network node 170) and a terminal or sensing device (e.g., ED 110) , or signaling between different terminal or sensing device (e.g., between ED 110i and ED110j) may be carried in physical layer signaling (also called as dynamic signaling) , which is transmitted in a physical layer control channel. For downlink the physical layer signaling may be known as downlink control information (DCI) which is transmitted in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) . For uplink, the physical layer signaling may be known as uplink control information (UCI) which is transmitted in a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) . For sidelink, signaling between different terminal or sensing device (e.g., between ED 110i and ED110j) may be known as sidelink control information (SCI) which is transmitted in a physical sidlink control channel (PSCCH) . Signaling may be carried in a higher-layer (e.g., higher than physical layer) signaling, which is transmitted in a physical layer data channel, e.g. in a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) for downlink signaling, in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) for uplink signaling, and in a physical slidelink shared channel (PSSCH) for sidelink signaling. Higher-layer signaling may also called static signaling, or semi-static signaling. Higher-layer signaling may be radio resource control (RRC) protocol signaling or media access control –control element (MAC-CE) signaling. Signaling may be included in a combination of physical layer signaling and higher layer signaling.

It should be noted that in present disclosure, “information” , when different from “message” , may be carried in one single message, or be carried in more than one separate message.

One or more steps of the methods provided in this disclosure herein may be performed by corresponding units or modules, according to FIG. 4. FIG. 4 illustrates units or modules in a device or apparatus, such as in the ED 110, in the T-TRP 170, or in the NT-TRP 172. For example, a signal may be transmitted by a transmitting unit or by a transmitting module. A signal may be received by a receiving unit or by a receiving module. A signal may be processed by a processing unit or a processing module. Other steps may be performed by an artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) module. The respective units or modules may be implemented using hardware, one or more components or devices that execute software, or a combination thereof. For instance, one or more of the units or modules may be a circuit such as an integrated circuit. Examples of an integrated circuit includes a programmed FPGA, a GPU, or an ASIC. For instance, one or more of the units or modules may be logical such as a logical function performed by a circuit, by a portion of an integrated circuit, or by software instructions executed by a processor. It will be appreciated that where the modules are implemented using software for execution by a processor for example, the modules may be retrieved by a processor, in whole or part as needed, individually or together for processing, in single or multiple instances, and that the modules themselves may include instructions for further deployment and instantiation.

Additional details regarding the EDs 110, the T-TRP 170, and the NT-TRP 172 are known to those of skill in the art. As such, these details are omitted here.

The present disclosure is aimed at devices such as UEs, IoT devices, cars, etc. The type of network scenarios envisioned may include terrestrial TRPs such as base-stations and/or non-terrestrial TRPs such as drones, balloons, high-altitude platform stations (HAPS) , satellites, and any such devices that support radio access technologies such as 5G NR, future generation/network or other technologies.

For illustrative purposes, specific example embodiments will now be explained in greater detail in conjunction with the figures and above mentioned system, ED and TRP.

The embodiments set forth herein represent information sufficient to practice the claimed subject matter and illustrate ways of practicing such subject matter. Upon reading the following description in light of the accompanying figures, those of skill in the art will understand the concepts of the claimed subject matter and will recognize applications of these concepts not particularly addressed herein. It should be understood that these concepts and applications fall within the scope of the disclosure and the accompanying claims.

In some implementations, a static spectrum allocation scheme among different operators and/or RATs may be used.

In addition, to avoid signal interference or leakage, guard bands are required between carriers. As shown in FIG. 5 (for carriers of different operators) and FIG. 6 (for carriers of different RATs, three carriers (or carrier components, Carrier 1, Carrier 2 and Carrier 3) in one or more frequency bands may be allocated among three different operators or RATs, where the guard band 1 is provided between Carrier 1 and Carrier 2 and the guard band 2 is provided between Carrier 2 and Carrier 3 in frequency domain to avoid mutual signal interference or leakage between two neighboring carriers.

The width of a guard band (also known as a guard frequency or guard channel) between two carriers depends on various factors, including the specific frequency band, subcarrier spacing, and regulatory requirements. For example, an LTE channel having a total bandwidth of 20 MHz may have a guard band around 1 MHz on each side (approximately 5%of the total bandwidth) , and a NR channel may have a guard band associated with frequency band and numerology with reduced size of a guard band between carriers or between carrier components in frequency band. Therefore, guard bands between two neighbor carriers are non-negligible.

Given the spectrum allocation among different operators or RATs, if the spectrum (i.e., a carrier) for each operator or RAT is used without any spectrum sharing, it may lead to inefficient spectrum usage overall, as due to traffic in different operators or RATs may vary in loading or requirements, some operator/RAT may have unoccupied spectrum but another operator/RAT may not have enough spectrum to support its traffic. The above spectrum allocation scheme and usage may lead to low spectrum usage efficiency.

Accordingly, a method for signal processing is provided in the present disclosure, to enhance spectrum usage efficiency. In the method, the spectrum allocation among different operators or RATs can be improved by dynamically or adaptively sharing spectrum among the different operators or RATs, in a way of virtual carrier or component carrier (CC) , described below. The method may also reduce the implementation complexity.

In the present disclosure, in wireless communications, various frequency bands or/and various carrier in frequency band will be used. These frequency bands may include: available spectrum allocated to different operators or RATs may be considered with spectrum sharing upon traffic and service demand. The available spectrum can be pre-defined or configured into virtual carrier components (CCs) , one for each operator or RAT, where a bandwidth of each virtual CC can be adjusted adaptively based spectrum usage demand and spectrum sharing scenarios.

As shown in FIG. 7, the available spectrum allocated to three operators or RATs in one or more frequency bands is considered in usage as virtual single carrier (that includes thee virtual CCs) . It is noted that such a scheme may enhance the spectrum usage efficiency by removing or reducing size of the guard bands in FIG. 5 and FIG. 6, based on factors, e.g., center frequency of CC, frequency band, numerology, etc. In FIG. 7, the available spectrum is divided into equal portions for three operators or RATs, respectively, where each CC with its allocated (channel or transmission) bandwidth may support OFDM signal processing with (maximum) FFT or IFFT size based on a radio frequency (RF) bandwidth (e.g., for signal filtering and RF processing, that supports signals transmitted in its allocated bandwidth) .

A few carrier scenarios are considered. In one scenario, CC1, CC2 and CC3 are intra-band contiguous carriers, where CC1, CC2 and CC3 are within the same frequency band and are adjacent to each other. In another scenario, CC1, CC2 and CC3 are intra-band non-contiguous carriers, where CC1, CC2 and CC3 are within the same frequency band and there is a spectrum gap or guard band between two neighboring CCs among them. In other examples, CC1, CC2 and CC3 are inter-band non-contiguous carriers, where CC1, CC2 and CC3 are in different frequency bands and there is a spectrum gap or guard band between two neighboring CCs among them.

In this application, true single carrier like dynamical spectrum sharing is proposed. A bandwidth of a virtual CC (V-CC) is adjustable or configurable upon demand, e.g., based on operation time (e.g., day time, night time, etc. ) , traffic loading, traffic type, service type, traffic balances among operators, or/and power saving mode, etc., which makes the spectrum usage and sharing very flexible. As shown in FIG. 8, the available spectrum is adjustable/configurable over virtual CCs for spectrum sharing among different operators/RATs, which may be done adaptively on demand. Such a scheme is considered like dynamic spectrum sharing in a (true) single carrier, where a V-CC (e.g., V-CC2) may configure a maximum FFT size, that is large enough to support the single CC operation. A larger RF bandwidth (than RF bandwidth in support of equally divided spectrum in) can be configured or tuned to support larger FFT size and larger (channel or transmission) bandwidth, for example, for Operator 2 or RAT2 in operation with V-CC2 in FIG. 8.

In some implementations, spectrum sharing with virtual CC reconfiguration or adjustment is addressed. In certain time period or scenario, one operator or RAT in an operator may have un-occupied or unused spectrum (e.g., due to less traffic loading or service activity) , which can be shared with or used by another operator or another RAT of the operator to make more efficient usage of the un-occupied/unused spectrum. Thus, a first V-CC (e.g., V-CC1 in FIG. 8) can be adjusted or reconfigured with smaller transmission or processing bandwidth, and a second V-CC (e.g., V-CC2 in FIG. 8) can be adjusted or reconfigured with larger transmission or processing bandwidth to allow for virtual single CC operation, where the virtual single CC operation, for example, is to perform single FFT operation with spectrum sharing over multiple CCs. In other embodiments, a (frequency) bandwidth for DL or UL in a V-CC can be different. DL or UL bandwidth and its associated parameters such as supported maximum FFT size, numerology, etc., can be configured or indicated separately or independently.

Moreover, given an un-occupied/unused spectrum in the first V-CC, an amount of spectrum (up to the amount of the un-occupied/unused spectrum) in the first V-CC that is close to the spectrum of the second V-CC can be managed in use by the second V-CC (with some processing as needed, described below) . In this way, the operator or RAT in operation with the second V-CC can make use of the shared spectrum from the first V-CC and its own spectrum as one single resource block for flexible usage, such as resource scheduling, FFT operation or other control operation. As a result, this allows for virtual single CC operation with sharable spectrum in a cell of an operator or RAT.

After a (new or updated) bandwidth of a virtual CC (V-CC) is adjusted or configured, UEs in the V-CC cell may perform transmission and receptions accordingly based on the bandwidth and other associated parameters that may be also configured.

The method for signal processing provided in the present disclosure may be applied in the communications system shown in FIG. 1, or a communications system of a similar structure, or a communications systems of other structure, which will not be limited in the embodiments of the present disclosure.

Optionally, in the present disclosure, FIG. 9 is a schematic flow chart of a method 300 according to embodiments of this application. The method 300 may be performed by a base station (BS) and a user equipment (UE) . The base station transmits first information indicating one or more first parameters of a first virtual CC, accordingly, the UE receives the first information.

The one or more first parameters of the first virtual CC may comprising at least one bandwidth information (for example the bandwidth and the starting/center frequency location) , bandwidth identity, FFT size, cyclic prefix, numerology, etc.

Optionally, The information may be carried via any one of RRC/MAC/DCI signaling or any combination thereof. A signaling that carries the first information can be system information (such as SSB, SIB1 or the other SIB) , cell-common signaling, group common signaling, or UE specific signaling.

The UE communicates with the base station on the resources within the virtual CC according the first information.

Upon the operator or RAT in operation with the first virtual CC being allowed for sharing its portion of spectrum with another virtual CC, a reconfiguration of an updated spectrum and bandwidth for UEs in the first virtual CC cell may be provided.

In the embodiments of the present disclosure, referring to FIG. 9, the base station transmits second information indicating adjustment of the first virtual CC, accordingly, the UE receives the second information, where a processing of spectrum swapping (either spectrum cyclic shifting or direct shifting) is performed in generation of DFT-s-OFDM or CP-OFDM signal.

Accordingly, the base station shall inform the UEs in the first V-CC cell about the adjustment of the first virtual CC. Thus, the second information may indicate one or more second parameters of first virtual CC, which may comprise at least updated bandwidth information (for example the bandwidth and the starting/center frequency location) , bandwidth identity, FFT size, cyclic prefix, numerology, , spectrum adjustment information, or a grace period for the application of the adjusted first virtual CC, etc. where a processing of spectrum cyclic shifting or direct shifting is performed in generation of DFT-s-OFDM or CP-OFDM signal is based on the second information including the spectrum adjustment information and the FFT size.

In the implementations of the present disclosure, the information is regarded as second information. The second information may be carried via any one of RRC/MAC/DCI signaling or any combination thereof. A signaling that carries the second information can be can be system information (such as SSB, SIB1 or the other SIB) , cell-common signaling, group common signaling, or UE specific signaling.

In one possible implementation, an operator or RAT in an operator with a first virtual CC has un-occupied spectrum that could be shared with a second virtual CC, where the un-occupied spectrum is not adjacent or not close to the spectrum of the second V-CC.

In this case, an amount of spectrum of the first V-CC that is adjacent or close to the spectrum of the second V-CC can be swapped with a portion or all of the un-occupied spectrum, as shown in FIG. 11. Operator 1 or RAT 1 in operation with V-CC1 has the un-occupied spectrum, and a portion or all of which may be shared with V-CC2. The un-occupied spectrum is not adjacent to the spectrum of the V-CC2, thus in the V-CC1, an amount of spectrum adjacent to the spectrum of the V-CC2 is swapped with a portion or all of the un-occupied spectrum.

The spectrum swapping described above and in FIG. 11 V-CC1 may be applicable to both Cyclic Prefix-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (CP-OFDM) (CP-OFDM) signal and discrete Fourier transform (DFT) spread OFDM (DFT-s-OFDM) signal.

Based on the above description, the method for signal processing provided in the implementations of the present disclosure may be performed by the UE in the communication system. FIG. 10 shows a schematic flowchart of a method for signal processing provided in the embodiments of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 10, the method for signal processing provided in the implementations of the present disclosure includes S401 to S402.

S401 to S402 may be used for uplink transmission.

In S401, the UE receives information. The information is used for indicating one or more parameters, accordingly the information is transmitted by the BS.

In the implementations of the present disclosure, the one or more parameters include at least one of following parameters: a first block of output components mapping to a first block of subcarriers as input to Fourier Transform (FT) , a subcarrier shift offset, or an FT size, wherein the first block of output components belong to a plurality of output components, and the first block of subcarriers belongs to a plurality of subcarriers, wherein the plurality of subcarriers is in a carrier component (CC) , and wherein remaining output components of the plurality of output components map to the remaining subcarriers of the plurality of subcarriers.

In the implementations of the present disclosure, the subcarrier shift offset is a value to keep spectrum shifting within the FT size, so as to ensure that the FT computation is not increased.

In the implementations of the present disclosure, the FT includes Inverse Fast FT (IFFT) or Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform (IDFT) .

In the implementations of the present disclosure, a value of the subcarrier shift offset is configurable.

In the implementations of the present disclosure, the plurality of output components is a block of Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) output components or encoded signals from a source end.

In the implementations of the present disclosure, the information is carried via one or more of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling, Medium Access Control-Control Element (MAC-CE) , or Downlink Control Information (DCI) .

In S402, the UE performs spectrum shifting by moving mapping of the first block of output components away from the first block of subcarriers based on the information.

In some implementations, the UE leaves the first block of subcarriers as zero input values.

In some implementations, moving the mapping of the first block of output components away from the first block of subcarriers includes: moving the mapping of the first block of output components to a second block of subcarriers, wherein the second block of subcarriers is in the CC and the second block of subcarriers is not part of the plurality of subcarriers, and leaving the first block of subcarriers as zero input values.

Based on the above method for signal processing, since the spectrum shifting is performed by moving mapping of the first block of output components away from the first block of subcarriers, it may be possible to realize the adjustment or re-allocation of carrier components and in turn realize spectrum swapping. A spectrum may execute a single CC operation after undergoing spectrum swapping. For example, when there are unoccupied (or unused or idle) frequency resources in the CC and there are no enough frequency resources in another CC, the first block of output component in the CC is mapped to other unoccupied subcarriers in the CC (e.g., a second block of subcarrier in the CC that does not belong to the plurality of subcarriers) , so that the first block of subcarrier can be shared with another CC.

Alternatively, the BS may also perform similar operation when performing downlink transmission. In this case, S401 may be replaced with: the BS obtains the information, and optionally, transmitting the information to the UE. And S402 may be replaced with: the BS performs spectrum shifting by moving mapping of the first block of output components away from the first block of subcarriers based on the information.

In the implementations of the present disclosure, the spectrum shifting includes cyclic shifting, and the remaining output components of the plurality of output components map to the remaining subcarriers of the plurality of subcarriers.

The cyclic shifting further includes: the first block of subcarriers is located right at higher-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers, and the second block of subcarriers is located right below lower-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers; or the first block of subcarriers is located right at lower-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers, and the second block of subcarriers is located right above higher-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers.

In the implementations of the present disclosure, sizes of the first block of subcarriers and the second block of subcarriers are equal.

In the implementations of the present disclosure, the second block of subcarriers is not part of the plurality of subcarriers or is all or part of the plurality of subcarriers.

In the implementations of the present disclosure, performing the cyclic shifting on the first block of DFT output components and the second block of DFT output components with zero input values based on the subcarrier shift offset, includes: determining K first modulation symbols and K first Fourier coefficients corresponding to the first block of DFT output components, K being a positive integer; determining K second modulation symbols and K second Fourier coefficients corresponding to the second block of DFT output components, wherein the K second modulation symbols each include one zero modulation symbol, and the K second Fourier coefficients each include one zero Fourier coefficient; and performing the cyclic shifting on the K second modulation symbols and the K second Fourier coefficients as well as the K first modulation symbols and the K first Fourier coefficients based on the subcarrier shift offset, leaving the K first modulation symbols and the K first Fourier as zero input values. In this way, through cyclic shifting, it may be possible to realize spectrum swapping and achieve spectrum sharing with a plurality of virtual carrier components, and in turn improve the spectrum utilization efficiency.

In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the number of cyclic shifts is configurable, and depends on the number of overlapping frequency resources. For example, the number of cyclic spectrum moves is greater than or equal to the number of overlapping frequency resources. The larger the number of overlapping frequency resources, the greater the number of cyclic moves.

The proposed schemes in this disclosure may be applicable to OFDM signals, for example CP-OFDM (Cyclic Prefix Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) or DFT-s-OFDM (Discrete Fourier Transform -spread-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) ; for example, DL transmission is to use CP-OFDM signal and UL transmission is to use CP-OFDM or DFT-s-OFDM signal. The embodiments of the present disclosure are not limited thereto.

To support the spectrum sharing, the first V-CC (i.e., V-CC1 in the figure) cell may be reconfigured with updated (channel or transmission) bandwidth for its UEs. As a result, the updated bandwidth in the first V-CC may be reduced in size. Such a (re) configuration is applicable to CP-OFDM or DFT-s-OFDM signal. On top of the configuration procedure, additional processing procedure is required for DFT-s-OFDM, which is described below.

In the DFT-s-OFDM, a transform precoding step is performed before mapping the signal symbols on every sub-carrier for inverse FFT (IFFT) or inverse DFT (IDFT) processing, a variant of CP-OFDM designed to overcome an issue on high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) in CP-OFDM for uplink UL transmission. The following steps are a typical high-level procedure for the DFT-s-OFDM signal generation process, where these steps excluding Step 3 are a typical CP-OFDM signal generation process.

Data Input: The first step in the generation of a DFT-s-OFDM signal is the input of the data that needs to be transmitted. This data is typically in the form of a binary sequence (e.g., coded sequence) .

Modulation: The binary data is then modulated using a suitable digital modulation scheme such as QPSK, 16-QAM, 64-QAM, etc. This step converts the binary data into complex symbols that can be transmitted over the air.

DFT Precoding: Before the symbols are mapped onto the subcarriers, a Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) is applied to the symbols. This spreads the symbols across the frequency domain and encodes the symbols with Fourier coefficients. This step is unique to DFT-s-OFDM and is not present in CP-OFDM.

Subcarrier mapping: output from Step3 (or Step 2 for CP-OFDM) with a parallel format to map to input of IFFT module. This is done to prepare the data for the IFFT operation.

IFFT Operation: An IFFT operation is performed on the parallel data. This operation converts the frequency domain symbols into time domain symbols. The size of the IFFT operation (i.e., the number of points in the IFFT) is equal to the number of subcarriers in the OFDM signal.

Adding the Cyclic Prefix (CP) : After the IFFT operation, a cyclic prefix is added to each OFDM symbol. The cyclic prefix is a copy of the last part of the OFDM symbol and is added at the beginning of the same symbol. The purpose of the cyclic prefix is to mitigate the effects of multipath propagation and to maintain the orthogonality of the subcarriers.

Parallel to Serial Conversion: The OFDM symbols, each along with a cyclic prefix, are then converted back into a serial format. This is done to prepare the signal for transmission over the air.

DAC and Up-Conversion: The serial data is then converted from digital to analog format using a Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) . The analog signal is then up-converted to the desired carrier frequency for transmission.

Transmission: Finally, the up-converted signal is transmitted over the air through the antenna.

For example, to support the spectrum sharing for DFT-s-OFDM signal while keeping low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) characteristics after IFFT/IDFT processing, signal processing may need to be modified for the spectrum swapping and sharing. At front of means higher frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers, and at end of means lower frequency end of the plurality of subcarrier. Specifically, a cyclic shifting process is required among Steps 3-5, described below and as shown in FIG. 12:

Assuming in above Step 3, for example, there are M (complex) symbols, S_0, S_1, …, S_ (K-1) , S_K, …, S_ (M-1) , K <= M being the size of spectrum of the first V-CC that is to be shared with the second V-CC, as input to DFT processing to spread the M symbols across the frequency domain and encodes the symbols with M Fourier coefficients, C_0, C_1, …, C_ (K-1) , C_K, …, C_ (M-1) , as shown in upper chart of FIG. 12.

Assuming in Step 5, the IFFT size is N (subcarriers) , where N >= M+K. in one possible implementation, for DFT-s-OFDM, output from Step 3, the M Fourier coefficients, C_0, C_1, …, C_ (K-1) , …, C_ (M-1) and adding the other (N-M) zeros, C_0, C_1, …, C_ (K-1) , C_K, …, C_ (M-1) , 0, 0, …, as a subcarrier mapping as Step 4 may be used as input to the IFFT processing, as shown in upper chart. In this proposed spectrum shifting scheme for spectrum sharing using DFT-s-OFDM signal, a cyclic shift in the Fourier coefficients is performed as: K zeros, 0, 0, 0, 0…and C_K, …. C_ (M-1) , C_0, C_1, …. C_ (K-1) , 0, …. 0, by subcarrier mapping (in Step 4) , may be used as input to IFFT module as shown in lower chart; this is a processing on spectrum cyclic shifting after DFT and before IFFT operations, where there is a coefficient order change (but no coefficient order change in a sense of cyclic way) for the cyclic shifting processing as C_K, …. C_ (M-1) , C_0, C_1, …. C_ (K-1) . As a result, the proposed spectrum cyclic shifting by setting the first K subcarriers as “muted” or “zero” signal powers in IFFT processing for the first V-CC, and thus allowing for the first K subcarriers to be used/shared by the second V-CC in the second V-CC cell and leading to flexible spectrum sharing between the operators or RATs in operations with V-CC1 and V-CC2.

Such an operation may need at least two associated parameters as shown in FIG. 12 or 13: a size and location of a spectrum to be shifted (e.g., swapped here) , and which location to shift the spectrum to?

As a result, above configuration and signal processing may maintain the operator or RAT in operation of first V-CC to work with DFT-s-OFDM signal (upon operating on a reduced transmission or channel bandwidth) ; on the other hand, the operator or RAT in operation with the second V-CC can consider the shared spectrum from the first V-CC, e.g., first K subcarriers in FIG. 10, and its own spectrum as one single resource block for flexible usage, that is spectrum sharing with a virtual single CC operation (e.g., one single FFT processing becomes feasible) . The virtual single CC operation comprises resource scheduling, FFT operation or other control operation. As a result, the proposed cyclic spectrum shifting in signaling processing allows for virtual single CC operation with sharable spectrum in a cell of an operator or RAT.

For example, to support the spectrum sharing for DFT-s-OFDM signal while keeping low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) characteristics after IFFT/IDFT processing, signal processing may need to be modified for the spectrum swapping and sharing. At front of means higher frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers, and at end of means lower frequency end of the plurality of subcarrier Specifically, a cyclic shifting process is required among Steps 3-5, described below and as shown in FIG. 13:

Assuming in above Step 3, for example, there are M (complex) symbols, S_0, S_1, …, S_ (K-1) , S_K, …, S_ (M-1) , K <= M being the size of spectrum of the first V-CC that is to be shared with the second V-CC, as input to DFT processing to spread the M symbols across the frequency domain and encodes the symbols with M Fourier coefficients, C_0, C_1, …, C_ (K-1) , C_K, …, C_ (M-1) , as shown in upper chart of FIG. 13.

Assuming in Step 5, the IFFT size is N (subcarriers) , where N >= M+K. in one possible implementation, for DFT-s-OFDM, output from Step 3, the other (N-M) zeros, 0, 0, …, and adding the M Fourier coefficients, C_0, C_1, …, C_ (K-1) , …, C_ (M-1) as a subcarrier mapping as Step 4 may be used as input to the IFFT processing, as shown in upper chart. In this proposed spectrum shifting scheme for spectrum sharing using DFT-s-OFDM signal, a cyclic shift in the Fourier coefficients is performed as: C_K, …. C_ (M-1) , C_0, C_1, …. C_ (K-1) , 0, …. 0, and K zeros, 0, 0, 0, 0…by subcarrier mapping (in Step 4) , may be used as input to IFFT module as shown in lower chart; this is a processing on spectrum cyclic shifting after DFT and before IFFT operations. As a result, the proposed spectrum cyclic shifting by setting the end K subcarriers as “muted” or “zero” signal powers in IFFT processing for the first V-CC, and thus allowing for the end K subcarriers to be used/shared by the second V-CC in the second V-CC cell and leading to flexible spectrum sharing between the operators or RATs in operations with V-CC1 and V-CC2.

Accordingly, to support processing in FIG. 12 or 13, a base station in the first V-CC cell shall inform the UEs about the adjustment of the spectrum and an updated bandwidth information (e.g., from 10MHz bandwidth to 5MHz bandwidth) , provided by a signaling. The signaling may provide information to indicate one or more parameters of first virtual CC, which may comprise at least updated bandwidth information (for example the bandwidth and the starting/center frequency location) , bandwidth identity, FFT size, cyclic prefix, numerology, spectrum adjustment information, or a grace period for the application of the adjusted first virtual CC, etc. Where the signaling is provided to UEs in the first virtual CC cell for their DL and UL signal processing modifications with DFT-s-OFDM signal, including the spectrum cyclic shifting processing based on the spectrum adjustment information; and the spectrum adjustment information may include a size (e.g., K subcarriers, 5MHz spectrum) and location of a spectrum to be shifted/swapped, and location information for cyclic shifting of the spectrum to.

The signaling can be made in a semi-static way via higher-layer signaling such as Radio Resource Control (RRC) , Medium Access Control-Control Element (MAC-CE) , or in a dynamic way such via downlink control information (DCI) .

The signaling is from a base station of the first V-CC cell and can be system information (such as SSB, SIB1 or the other SIBs) , cell-common signaling, group common signaling, or UE specific signaling.

As a result, a processing of spectrum cyclic shifting is performed in generation of DFT-s-OFDM or CP-OFDM signal based on the signaling configuration including the spectrum adjustment information (e.g., K subcarriers, subcarriers of 5MHz spectrum with a numerology) and the FFT size (e.g., N subcarriers, FFT size for 20MHz bandwidth, etc. ) .

In the implementations of the present disclosure, the spectrum shifting includes direct shifting. The direct shifting is moving mapping of the plurality of output components directly down or directly up from the plurality of subcarriers by a distance. The distance is equal to the size of the first block of subcarriers, or the distance is equal to the subcarrier shift offset, where a value of the subcarrier shift offset is equal to or larger than the size of the first block of subcarriers.

Corresponding to the mapping operation at the transmitting side, an inverse mapping operation is made at a receiving side where frequency domain signal components after FT processing may perform a reverse mapping to recover to an original order of transmission-side signal components before the spectrum shifting.

In direct spectrum shifting scenario, the inverse mapping operation is to (directly) shift the frequency domain signal components back to its original frequency mapping locations (at transmit side) , and then perform signal detection such as demodulation, decoding, etc.; in cyclic spectrum shifting scenario, the inverse mapping operation is to (cyclically) shift the frequency domain signal components back to its original frequency mapping locations (at transmit side) , and then perform inversion DFT to obtain transformed signal components for further signal detection such as demodulation, decoding, etc.

For example, in downlink transmission, the transmitting side may be a BS, and the receiving side may be a UE. In uplink transmission, the transmitting side may be a UE, and the receiving side may be a BS. In sidelink transmission, the transmitting side may be a UE, and the receiving side may be another UE.

For example, to support the spectrum sharing for DFT-s-OFDM signal while keeping low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) characteristics after IFFT/IDFT processing, signal processing may need to be modified for the spectrum swapping and sharing. Specifically, a direct shifting process is required among Steps 3-5, described below and as shown in FIG. 14:

Assuming in above Step 3, for example, there are M (complex) symbols, S_0, S_1, …, S_ (K-1) , S_K, …, S_ (M-1) , K <= M being the size of spectrum of the first V-CC that is to be shared with the second V-CC, as input to DFT processing to spread the M symbols across the frequency domain and encodes the symbols with M Fourier coefficients, C_0, C_1, …, C_ (K-1) , C_K, …, C_ (M-1) , as shown in upper chart of 14.

Assuming in Step 5, the IFFT size is N (subcarriers) , where N >= M+K. in one possible implementation, for DFT-s-OFDM, output from Step 3, the M Fourier coefficients, C_0, C_1, …, C_ (K-1) , …, C_ (M-1) , and adding the other (N-M) zeros, 0, 0, …as a subcarrier mapping as Step 4 may be used as input to the IFFT processing, as shown in upper chart. In this proposed spectrum shifting scheme for spectrum sharing using DFT-s-OFDM signal, a direct shift in the Fourier coefficients is performed as: K zeros, 0, 0, 0, 0…and C_0, C_1, …. C_ (K-1) , C_K, …. C_ (M-1) , by subcarrier mapping (in Step 4) , may be used as input to IFFT module as shown in lower chart; this is a processing on spectrum direct shifting after DFT and before IFFT operations, where there is a coefficient order change (but no coefficient order change in a sense of direct way) for the direct shifting processing as C_0, C_1, …. C_ (K-1) , C_K, …. C_ (M-1) .

For example, to support the spectrum sharing for DFT-s-OFDM signal while keeping low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) characteristics after IFFT/IDFT processing, signal processing may need to be modified for the spectrum swapping and sharing. Specifically, a direct shifting process is required among Steps 3-5, described below and as shown in FIG. 15:

Assuming in above Step 3, for example, there are M (complex) symbols, S_0, S_1, …, S_ (K-1) , S_K, …, S_ (M-1) , K <= M being the size of spectrum of the first V-CC that is to be shared with the second V-CC, as input to DFT processing to spread the M symbols across the frequency domain and encodes the symbols with M Fourier coefficients, C_0, C_1, …, C_ (K-1) , C_K, …, C_ (M-1) , as shown in upper chart of FIG. 15.

Assuming in Step 5, the IFFT size is N (subcarriers) , where N >= M+K. in one possible implementation, for DFT-s-OFDM, output from Step 3, the other (N-M) zeros, and adding the M Fourier coefficients, C_0, C_1, …, C_ (K-1) , …, C_ (M-1) , as a subcarrier mapping as Step 4 may be used as input to the IFFT processing, as shown in upper chart. In this proposed spectrum shifting scheme for spectrum sharing using DFT-s-OFDM signal, a direct shift in the Fourier coefficients is performed as: C_0, C_1, …. C_ (K-1) , C_K, …. C_ (M-1) and K zeros, 0, 0, 0, 0…, by subcarrier mapping (in Step 4) , may be used as input to IFFT module as shown in lower chart; this is a processing on spectrum direct shifting after DFT and before IFFT operations. As a result, the proposed spectrum direct shifting by setting the end K subcarriers as “muted” or “zero” signal powers in IFFT processing for the first V-CC, and thus allowing for the end K subcarriers to be used/shared by the second V-CC in the second V-CC cell and leading to flexible spectrum sharing between the operators or RATs in operations with V-CC1 and V-CC2.

In the implementations of the present disclosure, the spectrum shifting includes direct shifting, the first block of output components is a first block of serial to parallel (S/P) conversion output components, the second block of output components is a second block of serial to parallel (S/P) conversion output components.

In the embodiments of the present disclosure, performing the direct shifting on the first block of S/P conversion output components and the third block of S/P conversion output components, and, the third block of S/P conversion output components and the second block of S/P conversion output components with zero input values based on the subcarrier shift offset, includes:

determining M first modulation symbols and M first frequency domain coefficients corresponding to the first block of S/P conversion output components and the third block of S/P conversion output components, wherein the M first modulation symbols corresponds to the M first frequency domain coefficients, respectively, M is a positive integer; the M first modulation symbols include K second modulation symbols and K second frequency domain coefficients corresponding to the first block of S/P conversion output components, K being a positive integer less than or equal to M;

determining K third modulation symbols and K third frequency domain coefficients corresponding to the second block of S/P conversion output components, wherein the K third modulation symbols each include one zero modulation symbol, and the K third frequency domain coefficients each include one zero frequency domain coefficient; and

performing the direct shifting on the M first modulation symbols and the M first frequency domain coefficients as well as the K third modulation symbols and the K third frequency domain coefficients, leaving the K second modulation symbols and the K second frequency domain coefficients as zero input values.

In this way, through direct shifting, it may be possible to realize spectrum swapping and achieve spectrum sharing with a plurality of virtual carrier components, and in turn improve the spectrum utilization efficiency.

In some implementations, an operator or RAT in an operator with a first virtual CC has un-occupied spectrum that is shared with a second virtual CC, where the un-occupied spectrum is not adjacent or not close to the spectrum of the second V-CC.

In this case, an amount of spectrum of the first V-CC that is adjacent or close to the spectrum of the second V-CC can be swapped with a portion or all of the un-occupied spectrum, as shown in FIG. 16. Operator 1 or RAT 1 in operation with V-CC1 has the un-occupied spectrum, and a portion or all of which may be shared with V-CC2. The un-occupied spectrum is not adjacent to the spectrum of the V-CC2, thus in the V-CC1, an amount of spectrum adjacent to the spectrum of the V-CC2 is swapped with a portion or all of the un-occupied spectrum.

In this case, one simple shifting option is taking: the first V-CC may be shifted the used spectrum directly to the unoccupied spectrum location, where the spectrum amount shifted can be a size of a portion or all of the unoccupied spectrum and may depend on how much spectrum to be shared with the second V-CC. Such a direct spectrum shifting may be more applicable, . e.g., to Cyclic Prefix-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (CP-OFDM) signal.

To support the spectrum sharing, the first V-CC cell may be reconfigured with updated (channel or transmission) bandwidth for its UEs. As a result, the updated bandwidth in the first V-CC may be reduced in size. Such a (re) configuration is applicable to CP-OFDM or DFT-s-OFDM signal. On top of the configuration procedure, additional processing procedure is required for DFT-s-OFDM, which is described below. Accordingly, the associated processing modifications on top of the conventional OFDM/IFFT scheme (as descried in earlier paragraphs) are made below, using CP-OFDM as an example shown in FIG. 16.

In Step 2, being serial to parallel (S/P) conversion functionality, for example, there are M (complex) symbols, S_0, S_1, …, S_ (K-1) , S_K, …, S_ (M-1) , K<=M being the size of spectrum of the first V-CC that is to be shared by the second V-CC, as input to S/P processing to map to the S subcarriers as frequency domain coefficients for IFFT processing, S_0, S_1, …, S_ (K-1) , S_K, …, S_ (M-1) , as shown in upper chart.

In Step 5, the IFFT size is N (subcarriers) , where N >= M+K. Conventionally for CP-OFDM, output from Step 2, M (complex) symbols, S_0, S_1, …, S_ (K-1) , S_K, …, S_ (M-1) and adding the other (N-M) zeros, S_0, S_1, …, S_ (K-1) , S_K, …, S_(M-1) , 0, 0, …, as a subcarrier mapping step may be used as input to the IFFT processing, as shown in upper chart. In this proposed spectrum direct shifting is performed as: K zeros, 0, 0, 0, 0…and S_0, …. S_ (K-1) , S_K…. S_ (M-1) , by subcarrier mapping, may be used as input to IFFT module as shown in lower chart; this is a processing on spectrum direct shifting after DFT and before IFFT operations, where there is no symbol order change in the spectrum direct shifting as S_0, …. S_ (K-1) , S_K…. S_ (M-1) . As a result, the proposed spectrum direct shifting by setting the first K subcarriers as “muted” or zero signal powers in IFFT processing for the first V-CC, and thus allowing for the first K subcarriers to be used/shared by the second V-CC in the second V-CC cell and leading to flexible spectrum sharing between the operators or RATs in operation with V-CC1 and V-CC2.

As a result, above configuration and signal processing may maintain the operator or RAT in operation of first V-CC to work with CP-OFDM or DFT-s-OFDM signal (upon operating on a reduced transmission or channel bandwidth) ; on the other hand, the operator or RAT in operation with the second V-CC can consider the shared spectrum from the first V-CC, e.g., first K subcarriers in FIG. 16, and its own spectrum as one single resource block for flexible usage, that is spectrum sharing with a virtual single CC operation (e.g., one single FFT processing becomes feasible) . The virtual single CC operation comprises resource scheduling, FFT operation or other control operation. As a result, the proposed cyclic spectrum shifting in signaling processing allows for virtual single CC operation with sharable spectrum in a cell of an operator or RAT.

Accordingly, to support processing in FIG. 16, a base station in the first V-CC cell shall inform the UEs about the adjustment of the spectrum and an updated bandwidth information (e.g., from 10MHz bandwidth to 5MHz bandwidth) , provided by a signaling. The signaling may provide information to indicate one or more parameters of first virtual CC, which may comprise at least updated bandwidth information (for example the bandwidth and the starting/center frequency location) , bandwidth identity, FFT size, cyclic prefix, numerology, spectrum adjustment information, or a grace period for the application of the adjusted first virtual CC, etc. Where the signaling is provided to UEs in the first virtual CC cell for their DL and UL signal processing modifications with DFT-s-OFDM signal, including the spectrum cyclic shifting processing based on the spectrum adjustment information; and the spectrum adjustment information may include a size (e.g., K subcarriers, 5MHz spectrum) and location of a spectrum to be shifted/swapped, and location information for cyclic shifting of the spectrum to.

As a result, a processing of spectrum direct shifting is performed in generation of CP-OFDM signal based on the signaling configuration including the spectrum adjustment information (e.g., K subcarriers, subcarriers of 5MHz spectrum with a numerology) and the FFT size (e.g., N subcarriers, FFT size for 20MHz bandwidth, etc. ) .

Please not the second information may indicate which of the swap and shift is used for the virtual adjustment of spectrum sharing, which is the configured/indicated parameter of spectrum adjustment information. The UE communicates with the base station on the resources within the updated virtual CC according to the second information.

Referring to FIGS. 9 to 13, the detailed description of the method for signal processing in the present disclosure is provided above. Referring to FIG. 17, a device for signal processing provided in the present disclosure will be described below. As shown in FIG. 17, the device 500 can be used to implement the steps of the method in the above embodiments. Thus, the device 500 can realize beneficial effects of the method in the above embodiments.

As shown in FIG. 17, the device 500 includes a receiving unit 510 and a processing unit 520. In a possible example, the device 500 is used to perform the method for signal processing as mentioned above.

The receiving unit 510 is configured to receive information for indicating one or more parameters. the one or more parameters include at least one of following parameters: a first block of output components mapping to a first block of subcarriers as input to Fourier Transform (FT) , a subcarrier shift offset, or an FT size; the first block of output components belong to a plurality of output components, and the first block of subcarriers belongs to a plurality of subcarriers; the plurality of subcarriers is in a carrier component (CC) ; and remaining output components of the plurality of output components map to the remaining subcarriers of the plurality of subcarriers.

The performing unit 520 is configured to perform spectrum shifting by moving mapping of the first block of output components away from the first block of subcarriers based on the information.

In the implementations of the present disclosure, the receiving unit 510 is configured to: move the mapping of the first block of output components to a second block of subcarriers; the second block of subcarriers is in the CC and the second block of subcarriers is not part of the plurality of subcarriers, and leaving the first block of subcarriers as zero input values.

In the implementations of the present disclosure, the spectrum shifting includes cyclic shifting, and the remaining output components of the plurality of output components map to the remaining subcarriers of the plurality of subcarriers; and

The cyclic shifting further includes the first block of subcarriers is located right at higher-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers, and the second block of subcarriers is located right below lower-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers; or the first block of subcarriers is located right at lower-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers, and the second block of subcarriers is located right above higher-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers.

In the implementations of the present disclosure, the spectrum shifting comprises direct shifting, wherein the direct shifting is moving mapping of the plurality of output components directly down or directly up from the plurality of subcarriers by a distance, wherein the distance is equal to the size of the first block of subcarriers, or the distance is equal to the subcarrier shift offset, where a value of the subcarrier shift offset is equal to or larger than the size of the first block of subcarriers.

In the implementations of the present disclosure, the subcarrier shift offset is a value to keep spectrum shifting within the FT size.

In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the information is carried via one or more of a radio resource control (RRC) signaling, medium access control-control element (MAC-CE) , or downlink control information (DCI) .

In the embodiments of the present disclosure, a value of the subcarrier shift offset is configurable.

In some aspects of the present disclosure, there is provided a communication apparatus/chipset system comprising means (e.g., at least one processor) to implement a method implemented by (or at) a UE of the present disclosure. The communication apparatus/chipset system may be the UE (that is, a terminal device) or a module/component in the UE. In details, the at least one processor may execute instructions stored in a computer-readable medium to implement the method.

In some aspects of the present disclosure, there is provided a communication apparatus/chipset system comprising means (e.g., at least one processor) to implement the method implemented by (or at) a network device (e.g., base station) of the present disclosure. The communication apparatus/chipset system may be the network device or a module/component in the network device. In details, the at least one processor may execute instructions stored in a computer-readable medium to implement the method.

The communication apparatus 1500, as shown in FIG. 18, includes a processor 1501 and a communication interface 1502. The processor 1501 is connected to the communications interface 1502. The processor 1501 is configured to cause the communication apparatus 1500 to perform any of the methods described above, and the communications interface 1502, i.e., a transceiver, is configured to communicate with other network elements under the control of the processor 1501. In some examples, the communication apparatus 1500 may further include a memory 1503, configured to store apparatus program code (or instructions) and/or data..

In some examples, the communications interface 1502 is an interface circuit configured to communicate with another component. For example, the interface circuit may communicate a signal with other apparatus/system such as a radio frequency processing apparatus, or processor system.

In some aspects of the present disclosure, there is provided a communication system comprising at least one of an apparatus in (or at) a UE of the present disclosure, or an apparatus in (or at) a network device of the present disclosure, as described above.

In some aspects of the present disclosure, there is provided a method performed by a system comprising at least one of an apparatus in (or at) a UE of the present disclosure, and an apparatus in (or at) a network device of the present disclosure.

In some aspects of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer program comprising instructions. The instructions, when executed by a processor, may cause the processor to implement a method of the present disclosure.

In some aspects of the present disclosure, there is provided a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions, the instructions, when executed by a processor, may cause the processor to implement a method of the present disclosure.

The solutions described in the disclosure is applicable to a next generation (e.g. future generation/network or later) network, or a legacy (e.g. 5G, 4G, 3G or 2G) network.

It will be appreciated that any module, component, or device disclosed herein that executes instructions may include, or otherwise have access to, a non-transitory computer/processor readable storage medium or media for storage of information, such as computer/processor readable instructions, data structures, program modules and/or other data. A non-exhaustive list of examples of non-transitory computer/processor readable storage media includes magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, optical disks such as compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM) , digital video discs or digital versatile discs (i.e., DVDs) , Blu-ray Disc^TM, or other optical storage, volatile and non-volatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology, random-access memory (RAM) , read-only memory (ROM) , electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) , flash memory or other memory technology. Any such non-transitory computer/processor storage media may be part of a device/apparatus or accessible or connectable thereto. Computer/processor readable/executable instructions to implement a method, an application or a module described herein may be stored or otherwise held by such non-transitory computer/processor readable storage media.

It could be noted that the message in the disclosure could be replaced with information, which may be carried in one single message, or be carried in more than one separate message.

Without special noting, the terms “apparatus” and “device” are used exchangeable, and the terms “identity” and “identifier” are sued exchangeable.

In the disclosure, the word “a” or “an” when used in conjunction with the term “comprising” or “including” in the claims and/or the specification may mean “one” , but it is also consistent with the meaning of “one or more” , “at least one” , and “one or more than one” unless the content clearly dictates otherwise. Similarly, the word “another” may mean at least a second or more unless the content clearly dictates otherwise.

In the disclosure, the words “first” , “second” , etc., when used before a same term (e.g., ED, or an operating step) does not mean an order or a sequence of the term. For example, the “first ED” and the “second ED” , means two different EDs without specially indicated, and similarly, the “first step” and the “second step” means two different operating steps without specially indicated, but does not mean the first step have to happen before the second step. The real order depends on the logic of the two steps.

The terms “coupled” , “coupling” or “connected” as used herein can have several different meanings depending on the context in which these terms are used. For example, as used herein, the terms coupled, coupling, or connected can indicate that two elements or devices are directly connected to one another or connected to one another through one or more intermediate elements or devices via a mechanical element depending on the particular context.

Note that the expression “at least one of A or B” , as used herein, is interchangeable with the expression “A and/or B” . It refers to a list in which you may select A or B or both A and B. Similarly, “at least one of A, B, or C” , as used herein, is interchangeable with “A and/or B and/or C” or “A, B, and/or C” . It refers to a list in which you may select: A or B or C, or both A and B, or both A and C, or both B and C, or all of A, B and C. The same principle applies for longer lists having a same format.

The present disclosure encompasses various embodiments, including not only method embodiments, but also other embodiments such as apparatus embodiments and embodiments related to non-transitory computer readable storage media. Embodiments may incorporate, individually or in combinations, the features disclosed herein.

The term “receive” , “detect” and “decode” as used herein can have several different meanings depending on the context in which these terms are used. For example, without special note, the term “receive” may indicate that information (e.g., DCI, or MAC-CE, RRC signaling or TB) is received successfully by the receiving node, which means the receiving side correctly detect and decode it.In this scenario, “receive” may cover “detect” and “decode” or may indicates same thing, e.g., “receive paging” means decoding paging correctly and obtaining the paging successfully, accordingly, “the receiving side does not receive paging” means the receiving side does not detect and/or decoding the paging. “paging is not received” means the receiving side tries to detect and/or decoding the paging, but not obtain the paging successfully. The term “receive” may sometimes indicate that a signal arrives at the receiving side, but does not mean the information in the signal is detected and decoded correctly, then the receiving side need perform detecting and decoding on the signal to obtain the information carried in the signal. In this scenario, “receive” , “detect” and “decode” may indicate different procedure at receiving side to obtain the information.

Although this disclosure refers to illustrative embodiments, this is not intended to be construed in a limiting sense. Various modifications and combinations of the illustrative embodiments, as well as other embodiments of the disclosure, will be apparent to persons skilled in the art upon reference to the description. When combining two or more embodiments, not all the features in the embodiments to be combined are necessary for the combination.

Features disclosed herein in the context of any particular embodiments may also or instead be implemented in other embodiments. Method embodiments, for example, may also or instead be implemented in apparatus, system, and/or computer program product embodiments. In addition, although embodiments are described primarily in the context of methods and apparatus, other implementations are also contemplated, as instructions stored on one or more non-transitory computer-readable media, for example. Such media could store programming or instructions to perform any of various methods consistent with the present disclosure.

The foregoing descriptions are merely specific implementations of the present disclosure, but the protection scope of the present disclosure is not limited thereto. Any changes or replacements within the technical scope of the present disclosure shall be included in the protection scope of the present disclosure. Therefore, the protection scope of the present disclosure shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

A method for signal processing, comprising:

receiving information for indicating one or more parameters, wherein the one or more parameters include at least one of following parameters: a first block of output components mapping to a first block of subcarriers as input to Fourier Transform (FT) , a subcarrier shift offset, or an FT size, wherein the first block of output components belong to a plurality of output components, and the first block of subcarriers belongs to a plurality of subcarriers, wherein the plurality of subcarriers is in a carrier component (CC) , and wherein remaining output components of the plurality of output components map to remaining subcarriers of the plurality of subcarriers; and

performing spectrum shifting by moving mapping of the first block of output components away from the first block of subcarriers based on the information.
The method of claim 1, wherein moving the mapping of the first block of output components away from the first block of subcarriers comprises:

moving the mapping of the first block of output components to a second block of subcarriers, wherein the second block of subcarriers is in the CC and the second block of subcarriers is not part of the plurality of subcarriers, and leaving the first block of subcarriers as zero input values.
The method of claim 2, wherein the spectrum shifting comprises cyclic shifting, wherein the remaining output components of the plurality of output components map to the remaining subcarriers of the plurality of subcarriers; and

wherein the cyclic shifting further comprises the following cases that:

the first block of subcarriers is located right at higher-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers, and the second block of subcarriers is located right below lower-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers; or

the first block of subcarriers is located right at lower-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers, and the second block of subcarriers is located right above higher-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers.
The method of claim 2, wherein the spectrum shifting comprises direct shifting, wherein the direct shifting is moving mapping of the plurality of output components directly down or directly up from the plurality of subcarriers by a distance, wherein the distance is equal to the size of the first block of subcarriers, or the distance is equal to the subcarrier shift offset, where a value of the subcarrier shift offset is equal to or larger than the size of the first block of subcarriers.
The method of any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the subcarrier shift offset is a value to keep spectrum shifting within the FT size.
The method of any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the information is carried via one or more of a radio resource control (RRC) signaling, medium access control-control element (MAC-CE) , or downlink control information (DCI) .
The method of any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the FT comprises Inverse Fast FT (IFFT) or Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform (IDFT) .
The method of any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein a value of the subcarrier shift offset is configurable.
The method of any one of claims 1 to 8, wherein the plurality of output components is a block of Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) output components or encoded signals from a source end.
A device for signal processing, comprising:

a receiving unit configured to receive information for indicating one or more parameters, wherein the one or more parameters include at least one of following parameters: a first block of output components mapping to a first block of subcarriers as input to Fourier Transform (FT) , a subcarrier shift offset, or an FT size, wherein the first block of output components belong to a plurality of output components, and the first block of subcarriers belongs to a plurality of subcarriers, wherein the plurality of subcarriers is in a carrier component (CC) , and wherein remaining output components of the plurality of output components map to remaining subcarriers of the plurality of subcarriers; and

a performing unit configured to perform spectrum shifting by moving mapping of the first block of output components away from the first block of subcarriers based on the information.
The device of claim 10, wherein the performing unit is configured to:

move the mapping of the first block of output components to a second block of subcarriers, wherein the second block of subcarriers is in the CC and the second block of subcarriers is not part of the plurality of subcarriers, and leaving the first block of subcarriers as zero input values.
The device of claim 11, wherein the spectrum shifting comprises cyclic shifting, wherein the remaining output components of the plurality of output components map to the remaining subcarriers of the plurality of subcarriers; and

wherein the cyclic shifting further comprises the following cases that:

the first block of subcarriers is located right at higher-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers, and the second block of subcarriers is located right below lower-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers; or

the first block of subcarriers is located right at lower-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers, and the second block of subcarriers is located right above higher-frequency end of the plurality of subcarriers.
The device of claim 11, wherein the spectrum shifting comprises direct shifting, wherein the direct shifting is moving mapping of the plurality of output components directly down or directly up from the plurality of subcarriers by a distance, wherein the distance is equal to the size of the first block of subcarriers, or the distance is equal to the subcarrier shift offset, where a value of the subcarrier shift offset is equal to or larger than the size of the first block of subcarriers.
The device of any one of claims 10 to 13, wherein the subcarrier shift offset is a value to keep spectrum shifting within the FT size.
The device of any one of claims 10 to 14, wherein the information is carried via one or more of a radio resource control (RRC) signaling, medium access control-control element (MAC-CE) , or downlink control information (DCI) .
The device of any one of claims 10 to 15, wherein the FT comprises Inverse Fast FT (IFFT) or Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform (IDFT) .
The device of any one of claims 10 to 16, wherein a value of the subcarrier shift offset is configurable.
The device of any one of claims 10 to 17, wherein the plurality of output components is a block of Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) output components or encoded signals from a source end.
A communication apparatus, comprising:

a communication interface configured to communicate with other network elements under control of a processor; and

the processor configured to cause the communication apparatus to perform the method of any one of claims 1 to 9.
A computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer program instructions that, when executed by a processing circuit of a computer, cause the computer to implement the method of any one of claims 1 to 9.
A computer program product having instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to implement the method of any one of claims 1 to 9.