CN111918297B

CN111918297B - Method and device for cell merging under CU-DU (control Unit-data Unit) architecture

Info

Publication number: CN111918297B
Application number: CN201910376890.9A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 晋英豪; 杨晨晨; 谭巍; 杨水根
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2019-05-07
Filing date: 2019-05-07
Publication date: 2022-08-09
Anticipated expiration: 2039-05-07
Also published as: WO2020224408A1; CN111918297A

Abstract

The application discloses a method for cell merging under a central unit CU-distributed unit DU architecture, which comprises the following steps: a CU acquires configuration information of each DU in N DUs, each DU corresponds to at least one first cell, the configuration information of each DU is used for combination configuration of the at least one first cell, the first cell is a cell meeting combination conditions, and N is an integer larger than 0; the CU sends configuration information to each DU so that the N DUs combine the first cells into one logical cell, which has a first physical cell identity. The embodiment of the invention also provides a corresponding device and a storage medium. According to the technical scheme, the configuration information of cell combination is determined by the CU, and the DU configures the corresponding cell according to the configuration information distributed by the CU, so that the problem that the cell combination mode cannot be dynamically changed is solved, and the flexible configuration of the base station on the cell combination is realized.

Description

Method and device for cell merging under CU-DU (control Unit-data Unit) architecture

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of communication, in particular to a method and a device for cell merging under a central unit CU-distributed unit DU architecture.

Background

In a communication network, usually, one cell has one set of cell parameters and uses one carrier, and since the carrier resources are limited, it is common that a plurality of cells use carriers of the same frequency. When the frequencies of the carriers used by a plurality of cells are the same, the interference of the adjacent cells to the terminal users located at the edge of the cell is large, especially in special scenes such as dense urban areas and high-speed rails, the problems of frequent switching caused by rapid movement of the users and adjacent cell interference caused by dense base stations are more serious, and the overall communication quality of the terminal in the cell is affected. In order to improve the overall communication quality of terminals in cells, a method of combining multiple cells is generally adopted, that is, multiple cells with overlapping coverage areas covered by radio frequency modules working on the same frequency band in a geographic area are combined into a logical cell, each cell before combination is configured with a Physical Cell Identity (PCI) of its own, and each cell in the logical cells after combination adopts the same PCI, so that part of terminals originally located at the edges of the cells are no longer located at the edges of the logical cells, thereby reducing the number of terminals located at the edges of the cells, eliminating inter-cell interference, improving wireless network coverage, and improving the overall communication quality of the terminals. The method for cell merging provided by the prior art is as follows: when initially establishing a base station for cell layout, combining a plurality of cells corresponding to carriers of the same frequency into a logical cell. In the subsequent communication process, the combined logical cell will always serve as a communication cell to provide communication service for the terminal.

The cell merging in the prior art has certain limitations: the cell merging scheme realized based on the LTE flat base station is formed when the initial cell layout is carried out, the base station cannot determine the merging mode of the cells according to the network condition, the cell merging technology improves the throughput of edge users and reduces the switching number at the cost of less users, gains are obtained through joint transceiving, the total capacity of the merged logic cells is far smaller than the total capacity of a plurality of cells when the cells are not merged after the cells are merged, the overall throughput of the system is reduced, in some special scenes, for example, the capacity of the logic cells is limited due to the increase of user data in the logic cells, the cell access quality of users is reduced, even when part of users cannot access the network, the merging mode of the cells needs to be changed, however, the base station cannot change the merging mode of the cells, and therefore poor user experience is brought.

Disclosure of Invention

The embodiment of the application provides a method for cell merging under a central unit CU-distributed unit DU architecture, which can solve the problem that a cell merging mode cannot be changed and realize flexible configuration of a base station on cell merging.

In order to solve the above technical problem, an embodiment of the present application provides the following technical solutions:

a first aspect of the present application provides a method for cell merging under a central unit CU-distributed unit DU architecture, including: the method comprises the steps that a CU acquires configuration information of each DU in N DUs, the configuration information of each DU is determined by the CU, each DU corresponds to at least one first cell, the configuration information of each DU is used for merging configuration of at least one first cell, the first cell is a cell meeting merging conditions, namely the first cell refers to each cell meeting the merging conditions in one or more cells corresponding to the DU, N is an integer larger than 0, and the N DUs are part or all DUs in one or more DUs connected with the CU; the CU sends configuration information to each DU, so that the N DUs combine a plurality of first cells into one logical cell, the logical cell has one first physical cell identity, the logical cell may be a Single Frequency Network (SFN) logical cell, each first cell before combining has one second physical cell identity, the logical cell after combining has only one first physical cell identity, and the first physical cell identity and the second physical cell identity may be at least one of a Physical Cell Identity (PCI) and a global cell identity (CGI).

As can be seen from the first aspect, the configuration information of each DU is determined by a CU, and the DU configures the corresponding first cell according to the configuration information allocated by the CU, so that a plurality of first cells are combined into a logical cell, thereby solving the problem that the cell combining manner cannot be dynamically changed, and implementing flexible configuration of the base station for cell combining.

In a possible implementation manner, the acquiring, by a CU, configuration information of each DU in N DUs includes: the CU selects a plurality of first cells satisfying a combining condition from the plurality of cells according to cell qualities of a plurality of cells corresponding to some or all DUs connected to the CU, where N DUs correspond to the plurality of first cells, each DU corresponds to at least one first cell, the cell quality may be information that can reflect communication conditions in the cell, such as channel condition information of the cell, load information of the cell, the number of terminals in the cell, or a moving rate of the terminal, and the channel condition information of the cell may include at least one of Reference Signal Receiving Power (RSRP) and signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) of the plurality of terminals relative to an intra-cell radio frequency module, which are obtained through testing by the plurality of terminals in the cell, and the channel condition information of the cell, the number of terminals in the cell, or a moving speed of the terminal, and the like may be reported from the terminal to the CU, the load of the cell can be reported to the CU by the corresponding DU; the CU determines configuration information of each DU according to a plurality of first cells, where the configuration information of each DU includes a second physical cell identifier of each first cell in at least one first cell and indication information of a logical cell, the indication information of the logical cell is used to indicate the first physical cell identifier, the second physical cell identifier is used to indicate one of the plurality of first cells that satisfy a combining condition before being combined into the logical cell, that is, the second physical cell identifier is a cell identifier used by the first cell before being combined, and after being combined into the logical cell, the plurality of first cells adopt a same cell identifier, the same cell identifier is a first physical cell identifier of the logical cell, and the indication information of the logical cell may be the same cell identifier or other information indicating the same cell identifier.

According to the possible implementation manners, the CU can determine the configuration information of each DU according to the cell quality of the plurality of cells, and the DUs configure the corresponding first cell according to the configuration information allocated by the CU, so that the plurality of first cells are combined into a logical cell, which not only can solve the problem that the cell combination manner cannot be dynamically changed, realize flexible configuration of the base station for cell combination, but also can well improve the communication experience of the user according to the actual network state.

In a possible implementation manner, after the CU sends corresponding configuration information to each DU, so that the N DUs combine the first cells into one logical cell, the method further includes: a CU receives first information sent by a target DU, where the target DU may be one DU selected arbitrarily or according to a certain rule from among N DUs, for example, a first DU completing configuration of a corresponding first cell, the first information includes an identifier of a target terminal located in a logical cell, and the target DU is one of the N DUs, and the first information is used for the CU to send, to the target DU, channel quality of the target terminal relative to each first cell in the logical cell, and the channel quality of each first cell may be at least one of RSRP and SINR, or other information that may be used to indicate the channel quality of the first cell; the CU sends second information to the target DU according to the first information, the second information comprises channel quality of each first cell in at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU, the target DU can allocate a serving cell providing communication service for the target terminal according to the channel quality of each first cell in all the first cells corresponding to the target DU, the second information is used for the target DU to determine the serving cell providing communication service for the target terminal, and the serving cell is at least one of the first cells corresponding to the target DU.

As can be known from the above possible implementation manners, the base station may allocate, based on an actual network state, a serving cell providing a communication service to the target terminal according to the channel quality of the target terminal with respect to each of the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU, so as to ensure good communication experience for the user to a certain extent.

In a possible implementation manner, the configuration information further includes a decision threshold, where the decision threshold may be determined by the CU according to cell qualities of multiple cells, the decision threshold is used by the target DU to determine a serving cell providing a communication service for the target terminal, and the serving cell is at least one of at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU whose channel quality satisfies the decision threshold.

According to the possible implementation manners, the decision threshold is added into the configuration information, so that the target DU can determine the serving cell providing the communication service for the target terminal in the logical cell according to the decision threshold, thereby improving the system performance to a certain extent and ensuring good communication experience of the user to a certain extent.

In a possible implementation manner, the configuration information further includes a load threshold, where the load threshold is used for determining, by the target DU, a corresponding decision threshold according to the cell load of the logical cell.

As can be seen from the above possible implementation manners, the configuration information sent by the CU to each DU may further include a load threshold, so that the target DU may correspondingly determine a decision threshold according to the load threshold satisfied by the actual cell load, and then determine a serving cell providing a communication service for the user according to the decision threshold, thereby well ensuring the communication experience of the user.

In a possible implementation manner, the configuration information further includes a decision threshold or a load threshold, where the decision threshold and the load threshold have a corresponding relationship, the corresponding relationship may be specified by a protocol or preset, and the target DU determines a serving cell providing a communication service for the target terminal according to the decision threshold; or, the target DU determines a decision threshold according to a relationship between a cell load of the logical cell and the load threshold, and determines a serving cell providing a communication service for the target terminal according to the decision threshold, where the serving cell is at least one of at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU whose channel quality satisfies the decision threshold.

In a possible implementation manner, the plurality of first cells include a primary cell and at least one secondary cell, the secondary cells share a capacity resource of the primary cell, the PCI or CGI that is the same as the primary cell is used, the same radio signal as the primary cell is transmitted on the same frequency between the same systems, and the indication information of the logical cell is the indication information of the primary cell, and may be, for example, the PCI or CGI of the primary cell.

In a possible implementation manner, after sending, by a CU, corresponding configuration information to each DU, the method further includes: the CU receives response information sent by each DU, where the response information may include a second physical cell identity of the first cell that successfully completes configuration and indication information of the logical cell corresponding to each DU, and the response information sent by each DU is used to indicate that each DU completes combining configuration of at least one first cell.

As can be seen from the foregoing possible implementation manners, after the CU sends the configuration information to each DU, each DU also sends response information to the CU after completing the merging configuration of the corresponding knowledge for one first cell, so that the CU can ensure completion of cell merging, thereby ensuring good user experience after completion of subsequent cell merging.

A second aspect of the present application provides a method for cell merging under a central unit CU-distributed unit DU architecture, including: each DU in the N DUs receives configuration information of each DU sent by the CU, the configuration information of each DU is determined by the CU, each DU corresponds to at least one first cell, the configuration information of each DU is used for merging configuration of the at least one first cell, the first cell is a cell that meets a merging condition, that is, the first cell refers to each cell that meets the merging condition and is to be merged in one or more cells corresponding to the DU, one CU may connect the at least one DU, N is an integer greater than 0, and the N DUs are part or all DUs in one or more DUs connected to the CU; each DU performs merging configuration of the at least one first cell according to the configuration information, so that the N DUs merge the plurality of first cells into one logical cell, the logical cell has one first physical cell identity, the logical cell may be an SFN logical cell, each first cell before merging has one second physical cell identity, the logical cell after merging has only one first physical cell identity, and the first physical cell identity and the second physical cell identity may be at least one of a PCI and a CGI.

In a possible implementation manner, the configuration information corresponding to each DU includes a second physical cell identifier and indication information of a logical cell of each first cell in at least one first cell, the indication information of the logical cell is used to indicate the first physical cell identifier, the second physical cell identifier is used to indicate one of the first cells that satisfy the combining condition before being combined into the logical cell, that is, the second physical cell identifier is a cell identifier used by the first cell before being combined, a same cell identifier is used after the plurality of first cells are combined into the logical cell, the same cell identifier is a first cell identifier of the logical cell, the indication information of the logical cell may be the same cell identifier or other information indicating the same cell identifier, after each DU performs combining configuration of the at least one first cell according to the configuration information, further comprising: the target DU sends first information to the CU, where the target DU may be any one of N DUs or a DU selected according to a certain rule, for example, a first DU completing configuration of a corresponding first cell, where the first information includes an identifier of a target terminal located in a logical cell, and the target DU is one of the N DUs; the target DU receives second information sent by the CU, where the second information is determined by the CU according to the first information, and the second information includes channel quality of the target terminal with respect to each first cell in at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU, where the channel quality of each first cell may be at least one of RSRP and SINR, or may be other information that may be used to indicate the channel quality of the first cell; and the target DU determines a serving cell for providing communication service for the target terminal according to the second information, wherein the serving cell is at least one of at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU.

In a possible implementation manner, the configuration information further includes a decision threshold, where the decision threshold is determined by the CU according to cell qualities of multiple cells, the decision threshold is used for determining, by the target DU, a serving cell providing a communication service for the target terminal, and the serving cell is at least one of first cells corresponding to the target DU whose channel quality satisfies the decision threshold.

In a possible implementation manner, the configuration information further includes a decision threshold or a load threshold, where the decision threshold and the load threshold have a corresponding relationship, the corresponding relationship is specified by a protocol or is preset, and the target DU determines a serving cell providing a communication service for the target terminal according to the decision threshold; or, the target DU determines a decision threshold according to a relationship between a cell load of the logical cell and the load threshold, and determines a serving cell providing a communication service for the target terminal according to the decision threshold, where the serving cell is at least one of at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU whose channel quality satisfies the decision threshold.

In a possible implementation manner, the plurality of first cells include a primary cell and at least one secondary cell, and the indication information of the logical cell is indication information of the primary cell.

In a possible implementation manner, after performing the merged configuration of the at least one first cell according to the configuration information, each DU further includes: each DU sends response information to the CU, where the response information sent by each DU is used to instruct each DU to complete the combining configuration of the at least one first cell.

A third aspect of the present application provides a cell merging apparatus under a central unit CU-distributed unit DU architecture, where the cell merging apparatus has a function of implementing the method according to the first aspect or any one of the possible implementation manners of the first aspect. The function can be realized by hardware, and can also be realized by executing corresponding software by hardware. The hardware or software includes one or more modules corresponding to the functions described above.

A fourth aspect of the present application provides a cell merging apparatus under a central unit CU-distributed unit DU architecture, where the cell merging apparatus has a function of implementing a method according to any one of the second aspect and the possible implementation manner of the second aspect. The function can be realized by hardware, and can also be realized by executing corresponding software by hardware. The hardware or software includes one or more modules corresponding to the functions described above.

A fifth aspect of the present application provides a network device, comprising: a processor and a memory; the memory is configured to store computer executable instructions, and when the network device is running, the processor executes the computer executable instructions stored by the memory, so as to cause the network device to perform the method for cell merging as described in the first aspect or any one of the possible implementations of the first aspect.

A sixth aspect of the present application provides a network device, comprising: a processor and a memory; the memory is configured to store computer executable instructions, and when the network device is running, the processor executes the computer executable instructions stored in the memory, so as to cause the network device to perform the method for cell merging as described in the second aspect or any one of the possible implementation manners of the second aspect.

A seventh aspect of the present application provides a computer-readable storage medium, having stored therein instructions, which, when executed on a computer, enable the computer to perform the method for cell merging according to the first aspect or any one of the possible implementations of the first aspect.

An eighth aspect of the present application provides a computer-readable storage medium, which stores instructions that, when executed on a computer, enable the computer to perform the method for cell merging according to the second aspect or any one of the possible implementations of the second aspect.

A ninth aspect of the present application provides a computer program product comprising instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform the method of cell merging of the first aspect or any one of the possible implementations of the first aspect.

A tenth aspect of the present application provides a computer program product comprising instructions that, when run on a computer, enable the computer to perform the method of cell merging of the second aspect or any one of the possible implementations of the second aspect.

An eleventh aspect of the present application provides a chip system, where the chip system includes a processor, configured to support a network device to implement the functions recited in the first aspect or any one of the possible implementation manners of the first aspect. In one possible design, the system-on-chip further includes a memory, which stores program instructions and data necessary for the network device. The chip system may be constituted by a chip, or may include a chip and other discrete devices.

A twelfth aspect of the present application provides a chip system, where the chip system includes a processor, configured to support a network device to implement the functions in the second aspect or any one of the possible implementations of the second aspect. In one possible design, the system-on-chip further includes a memory, which stores program instructions and data necessary for the network device. The chip system may be constituted by a chip, or may include a chip and other discrete devices.

For technical effects brought by any one implementation manner of the third aspect, the fifth aspect, the seventh aspect, the ninth aspect, and the eleventh aspect, reference may be made to technical effects brought by different implementation manners in the first aspect, and details are not repeated here.

For technical effects brought by any one implementation manner of the fourth aspect, the sixth aspect, the eighth aspect, the tenth aspect, and the twelfth aspect, reference may be made to technical effects brought by different implementation manners of the second aspect, and details are not repeated here.

The embodiment of the invention adopts a method for cell merging under a central unit CU-distributed unit DU framework, the configuration information of the cell merging is determined by a CU, and the DU configures the corresponding cell according to the configuration information distributed by the CU, thereby solving the problem that the cell merging mode can not be dynamically changed and realizing the flexible configuration of the base station for the cell merging.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a system architecture according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of a method for cell merging under a CU-DU architecture in an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of another embodiment of a method for cell merging under a CU-DU architecture in an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of another embodiment of a method for cell merging under a CU-DU architecture in an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of another embodiment of a method for cell merging under a CU-DU architecture in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 6 is a schematic hardware structure diagram of a network device according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of a cell merging device under a CU-DU architecture according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of a cell merging device under another CU-DU architecture according to an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings, and it is to be understood that the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present invention, and not all of the embodiments. As can be known to those skilled in the art, with the emergence of new application scenarios, the technical solution provided in the embodiments of the present invention is also applicable to similar technical problems.

The embodiment of the invention provides a method for cell merging under a CU-DU framework, wherein the configuration information of cell merging is determined by a CU, and the DU configures a corresponding cell according to the configuration information distributed by the CU, so that the problem that the cell merging mode cannot be changed is solved, and the flexible configuration of a base station for cell merging is realized. The embodiment of the invention also provides a corresponding device. The details will be described below separately.

The terms "first," "second," and the like in the description and claims of this application and in the foregoing drawings are used for distinguishing between similar elements and not necessarily for describing a particular sequential or chronological order. It will be appreciated that the data so used may be interchanged under appropriate circumstances such that the embodiments described herein may be practiced otherwise than as specifically illustrated or described herein. Moreover, the terms "comprises," "comprising," and any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, system, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of steps or modules is not necessarily limited to those steps or modules explicitly listed, but may include other steps or modules not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. The naming or numbering of the steps appearing in the present application does not mean that the steps in the method flow have to be executed in the chronological/logical order indicated by the naming or numbering, and the named or numbered process steps may be executed in a modified order depending on the technical purpose to be achieved, as long as the same or similar technical effects are achieved. The division of the modules presented in this application is a logical division, and in practical applications, there may be another division, for example, multiple modules may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted, or not executed, and in addition, the shown or discussed coupling or direct coupling or communication connection between each other may be through some interfaces, and the indirect coupling or communication connection between the modules may be in an electrical or other similar form, which is not limited in this application. The modules or sub-modules described as separate components may or may not be physically separated, may or may not be physical modules, or may be distributed in a plurality of circuit modules, and some or all of the modules may be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the present disclosure.

Fig. 1 shows a system architecture diagram provided in an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a network side architecture of a 5G communication system provided in an embodiment of the present application, where the architecture supports not only a wireless technology defined by a 3GPP standard group to access a core network side, but also a non-3GPP access technology to access the core network side through a non-3GPP interworking function (N3 IWF) or a next generation access gateway (ngPDG), or a fixed network access gateway (ngPDG), or a trusted non-3GPP access gateway.

AN Access Network (AN), which may also be referred to as a Radio Access Network (RAN) in a specific application, is composed of access network devices and is responsible for accessing a user equipment. The RAN device of the 5G network may be a Next Generation (NG) RAN device. The RAN may be a next generation base station (next generation NodeB, gNB) or a next generation evolved NodeB (ng-eNB) in this embodiment of the present application. The gNB provides a user plane function and a control plane function of a new radio interface (NR) for the UE, and the ng-eNB provides a user plane function and a control plane function of an evolved universal terrestrial radio access (E-UTRA) for the UE, where it should be noted that the gNB and the ng-eNB are only names used for representing a base station supporting a 5G network system and do not have a limiting meaning.

The 5G communication system shown in fig. 1 includes a Next Generation Core (NGC) and a Radio Access Network (RAN) connected to the NGC, where the RAN connected to the NGC includes a gNB and a ng-eNB, and only one gNB and one ng-eNB are shown in fig. 1 for convenience of illustration.

Specifically, in the CU-DU architecture shown in fig. 1, one gNB or ng-eNB may be composed of a Central Unit (CU) and one or more Distributed Units (DUs), and one CU may be connected to one or more DUs. For example, one gNB or ng-eNB as shown in fig. 1 is composed of one CU and two DUs. The cell merging method provided by the embodiment of the application can be applied to a CU-DU framework shown in fig. 1, and cell merging is a method for solving frequent handover when a terminal moves at a high speed in a mobile communication system. Alternatively, as shown in fig. 1, in the CU-DU architecture, a CU may also be composed of a control plane (CU-CP) and one or more user planes (CU-UP), i.e., a CU-separate architecture, and a DU may be connected to one or more CU-UPs. It should be noted that this CU separation architecture is also applicable to the method for cell merging provided in the embodiment of the present application, and in the case of CU separation, the method for cell merging in the CU-DU architecture in the embodiment of the present application may be implemented by the control plane CU-CP and the DU.

The CU and the DU are connected by an F1 interface, the CU-CP and the CU-UP are connected by an E1 interface, the CU-CP and the DU are connected by a control plane interface (F1-C) of F1, and the CU-UP and the DU are connected by a user plane interface (F1-U) of F1, as shown in fig. 1, in which a solid line represents control plane transmission and a dotted line represents user plane transmission.

The functional partitioning of CUs and DUs may be performed according to a protocol stack. One possible way is to deploy Radio Resource Control (RRC), Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) layer and Service Data Adaptation (SDAP) layer in the CU. Radio Link Control (RLC), Medium Access Control (MAC), and physical layer (PHY) are deployed in the DU. Accordingly, the CU has the processing capabilities of RRC, PDCP and SDAP. The DU has the processing capabilities of RLC, MAC, and PHY. It should be noted that the functional division described above is only an example, and other ways of division are possible. For example, a CU includes the processing capabilities of RRC, PDCP, RLC, and SDAP, and a DU has the processing capabilities of MAC, and PHY. Also for example, a CU may include processing capabilities for RRC, PDCP, RLC, SDAP, and partial MAC (e.g., MAC header), and a DU may have processing capabilities for PHY and partial MAC (e.g., scheduling). Under the CU separation architecture, corresponding to a possible segmentation mode that the CU has the processing capabilities of RRC, PDCP, and SDAP, the control plane function and the data plane function of the CU may also be further segmented, specifically, the CU-CP may include the control plane function of RRC and PDCP, and is configured to process data of a signaling radio bearer; the CU-UP includes the data plane portion of the SDAP and PDCP for processing data of the data radio bearer. It should be noted that the functional division described above is only an example, and other ways of division are also possible. The names CU, DU, CU-CP, CU-UP may vary as long as the access network nodes that can fulfill the above functions are considered CU, DU, CU-CP, CU-UP in this application.

The terminal according to the present application may be connected to a core network through a RAN, and the terminal in the embodiment of the present application may represent any suitable terminal user equipment, and may include (or may represent) devices such as a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU), a mobile station, a mobile node, a mobile device, a fixed or mobile subscription unit, a pager, a mobile phone, a handheld device, a vehicle-mounted device, a wearable device, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a smart phone, a notebook computer, a touch screen device, a wireless sensor, or a consumer electronic device. A "mobile" station/node/device herein refers to a station/node/device that is connected to a wireless (or mobile) network and is not necessarily related to the actual mobility of that station/node/device.

Next, based on the system architecture, a method for cell merging under a CU-DU architecture provided in the embodiment of the present application will be specifically described. It should be noted that one CU may be connected to at least one DU, and one DU may correspond to at least one cell. Thus, one CU corresponds to at least one cell. In a case where one CU corresponds to multiple cells, for example, where one CU connects multiple DUs, or where one CU connects one DU and the DU corresponds to multiple cells, at least two cells in the multiple cells corresponding to the one or more DUs may be combined to form one logical cell, where each cell before combination has one physical cell id, and the combined logical cell has only one physical cell id. Each cell merged into the logical cell is referred to as a first cell, and there are N DUs corresponding to the first cell, where N is an integer greater than 0. It should be noted that, in this document, the physical cell identifier is also sometimes referred to as a cell identifier, and the physical cell identifier and the cell identifier may be used interchangeably herein, where a first physical cell identifier is a physical cell identifier that a logical cell formed by combining has, and a second physical cell identifier is a physical cell identifier that a first cell before combining has. First, a method for cell merging under a CU-DU architecture in the embodiment of the present application is introduced from a CU side, please refer to fig. 2 to 4.

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of a method for cell merging under a CU-DU architecture in an embodiment of the present application.

Referring to fig. 2, an embodiment of a method for cell merging under a CU-DU architecture in an embodiment of the present application may include:

201. the CU acquires configuration information of each DU in the N DUs, each DU corresponds to at least one first cell, the configuration information of each DU is used for combination configuration of the at least one first cell, and the first cell is a cell meeting combination conditions.

In this embodiment, a CU is connected to one or more DUs, each DU may correspond to one or more cells, and each cell has at least one of a Physical Cell Identity (PCI) and a global cell identity (CGI). The N DUs in the embodiment of the present application correspond to some or all of the DUs connected to the CU. A cell in this embodiment of the present application may refer to a wireless communication area covered by a radio frequency module, and specifically, a radio frequency module may refer to a Remote Radio Unit (RRU), and in addition, may also be a radio frequency unit (RFC) or an Active Antenna Unit (AAU), and the present application does not limit this. It should be noted that the first cell in this embodiment refers to each cell that satisfies the merging condition in one or more cells corresponding to the DU, and a plurality of first cells are merged to form one logical cell.

The logical cell in the embodiment of the present application may be a Single Frequency Network (SFN) logical cell. SFN refers to that the same time-frequency resources of multiple cells provide services for the same user at the same time, so as to form a virtual logical cell, and its coverage area is the set of multiple cell coverage areas. In particular, the SFN technology is a multi-RRU combining technology, and in the SFN mode, multiple RRUs are combined into one SFN logical cell, and the multiple RRUs correspond to different cells. The key technology of the SFN is downlink joint transmission, that is, on a downlink physical channel, multiple RRUs of an SFN logical cell transmit the same data on the same time-frequency resource, and compared with the case where each cell transmits data alone, a downlink control channel and a service channel between the RRUs in the SFN logical cell do not interfere with each other, and gain can be obtained through downlink joint transmission; in the uplink direction, all RRUs will use the same Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) and control channel. After combining a plurality of RRUs into one SFN logical cell by the SFN technology, the plurality of RRUs adopt the same PCI, PRACH and control channel, and the cell-level parameter configuration of each RRU, such as carrier frequency number, frequency point, channel configuration, CGI and the like, is the same, so that the area of the central area of the cell is enlarged, the area of the edge area of the cell is reduced, and the interference of the edge of the cell is reduced. The multiple first cells are configured through the SFN technology, so that the multiple first cells are combined into one SFN logical cell, and after the SFN logical cell is configured, multiple RRUs corresponding to the multiple first cells originally transmit the same wireless signals on the same frequency at the same time.

In this embodiment of the application, each DU in the N DUs may have one or more corresponding first cells, for example, N equals to 3, where one first cell 11 is configured in the cell corresponding to DU1, two first cells cell 21 and cell 22 are configured in the cell corresponding to DU2, and one first cell 31 is configured in the cell corresponding to DU3, that is, the four first cells corresponding to DU1, DU2, and DU3 are merged to form one logical cell. In the embodiment of the present application, a plurality of first cells forming a logical cell may correspond to the same DU, that is, N is 1, for example, a cell 11, a cell12, and a cell 13 are merged to form a logical cell; the plurality of first cells forming the logical cell may also correspond to different DUs, i.e. N >1, for example, cell 11, cell 21, cell 22, and cell 31 will be merged to form one logical cell.

In this embodiment, the configuration information of each DU is determined by a CU, and each DU performs merging configuration on one or more corresponding first cells according to the corresponding configuration information, so that a plurality of first cells corresponding to N DUs are merged to form one logical cell. Taking a logical cell as an SFN logical cell as an example, before a plurality of first cells are combined to form an SFN logical cell, each first cell has its own PCI, after the combination, each first cell in the SFN logical cell will use one identical PCI, a CU determines configuration information of each DU, after each DU receives corresponding configuration information, the corresponding first cell is configured according to the received configuration information, and each first cell after the configuration is completed adopts the identical PCI. Specifically, in this embodiment of the present application, each DU configures a corresponding first cell according to corresponding configuration information, where when an originally configured PCI of the first cell conflicts with a PCI uniformly used by an SFN logical cell, the originally configured PCI is changed to the PCI uniformly used by the SFN logical cell, and each DU may also reconfigure a uniform PRACH and a control channel for each first cell according to the corresponding configuration information, so that after the SFN logical cells are formed by combining a plurality of first cells, one same PCI is used to share a capacity resource of one cell, and a plurality of radio frequency modules corresponding to the plurality of first cells send the same data on the same time-frequency resource. For example: in this embodiment of the present application, N is 3, N DUs are DU1, DU2, and DU3, two first cells cell 11 and cell12 are configured in a cell corresponding to DU1, one first cell 21 is configured in a cell corresponding to DU2, one first cell 32 is configured in a cell corresponding to DU3, the four first cells are merged into one SFN logical cell, the CU determines the configuration information of U1, DU2, and DU3, respectively, the configuration information of U1, DU2, and DU3 is used for DU1, DU2, and DU3 to configure the corresponding first cells, cell 11, cell12, cell 21, and cell 32 are configured with unified PCI, PRACH, and control channels, the cell 11, the cell12, the cell 21, and the cell 32 are finally merged into an SFN logical cell, and a plurality of radio frequency modules corresponding to the cell 11, the cell12, the cell 21, and the cell 32 will transmit the same data on the same time frequency resource.

In this embodiment of the present application, the configuration information of each DU may include a second physical cell identifier of at least one first cell corresponding to each DU and indication information of a logical cell, where the indication information of the logical cell is used to indicate a first physical cell identifier of the logical cell, and the same physical cell identifier adopted by multiple first cells after being merged may be determined by a CU. In this embodiment of the present application, the same cell identifier adopted by the multiple first cells after being merged is a first physical cell identifier of the logical cell, and the first physical cell identifier may be one of second physical cell identifiers originally used by the multiple first cells, and optionally, may also be different from the second physical cell identifiers originally used by the multiple first cells, which is not limited in this embodiment of the present application. Each DU may determine a first cell from all cells corresponding to each DU according to a second physical cell identity of the first cell and indication information of a logical cell in the configuration information, and perform corresponding merging configuration of the logical cell on the first cell, which may be understood with reference to the embodiment of fig. 3.

202. The CU sends configuration information to each of the N DUs such that the N DUs combine the first cells into one logical cell having a first physical cell identity.

In this embodiment of the present application, after obtaining configuration information of each DU in N DUs, a CU sends corresponding configuration information to each DU, so that each DU can configure one or more first cells corresponding to each DU according to the corresponding configuration information, and thus the first cells are merged into a logical cell, the first cells each have a second physical cell identifier that is originally used before merging, and after the first cells are merged into the logical cell, the first cells use one same physical cell identifier, that is, one first physical cell identifier that the logical cell has. The first physical cell identifier and the second physical cell identifier in the embodiment of the present application may be at least one of a PCI and a CGI.

The embodiment of the application adopts a method for cell merging under a central unit CU-distributed unit DU architecture, the configuration information of each DU is determined by a CU, and the DU configures the corresponding first cell according to the configuration information distributed by the CU, so that a plurality of first cells are merged into a logic cell, the problem that the cell merging mode cannot be dynamically changed is solved, and the flexible configuration of a base station for cell merging is realized.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of another embodiment of a method for cell merging under a CU-DU architecture in an embodiment of the present application. The embodiment shown in fig. 3 is applied to indoor distribution, high-speed rail private network, high-interference area and other scenes. Referring to fig. 3, another embodiment of the method for cell merging under CU-DU architecture in the embodiment of the present application may include:

301. and the CU screens out a plurality of first cells meeting the combination condition from the plurality of cells according to the cell quality of the plurality of cells. Wherein, the N DUs connected to the CU correspond to the first cells.

In this embodiment, a CU may be connected to one or more DUs, and one DU may correspond to one or more cells, where each cell has at least one of a PCI and a CGI. The N DUs in the embodiment of the present application correspond to some or all of the DUs connected to the CU. In this embodiment, a cell may refer to a wireless communication area covered by one radio frequency module, and specifically, one radio frequency module may be one RRU, RFC, or AAU. In this embodiment of the present application, one or more first cells meeting a combining condition need to be screened from multiple cells, where the first cell in this embodiment of the present application refers to a part or all of cells to be combined in one or more cells corresponding to a DU.

In the embodiment of the present application, at least two first cells satisfying the combining condition are provided. For each DU in the N DUs, the configured first cell may be one or multiple; the plurality of first cells may correspond to the same DU, that is, N is 1, or may correspond to different DUs, that is, N >1, which is not limited in the embodiments of the present application. For example: when N is equal to 1, three first cells cell 11, cell12, and cell 13 all belong to DU1, and satisfy the merging condition; when N is 3, the four cells cell 11, cell 21, cell 22, and cell 31 satisfy the merging condition, where the first cell 11 corresponds to DU1, the cells 21 and 22 correspond to DU2, and the cell 31 corresponds to DU 3.

In this embodiment, the cell quality may be information that may reflect the communication situation in the cell, such as channel condition information of the cell, load information of the cell, the number of terminals in the cell, or the moving rate of the terminal. For example, in this embodiment of the present application, the channel condition information of the cell may include at least one of Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) and signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) of the plurality of terminals, which are obtained through testing by the plurality of terminals in the cell, with respect to an intra-cell radio frequency module, and the CU may determine the number of edge users of the cell according to the RSRP and/or the SINR of the plurality of terminals in the cell, and then determine the plurality of first cells from the plurality of cells based on the number of edge users of each cell. In this embodiment, the channel condition information of the cell, the number of terminals in the cell, or the moving speed of the terminal may be reported to the CU by the terminal, and the load of the cell may be reported to the CU by the corresponding DU.

In this embodiment of the present application, a CU selects, according to cell qualities of multiple cells corresponding to some or all DUs connected to the CU, multiple first cells that satisfy a combining condition from the multiple cells, where the multiple first cells correspond to N DUs, that is, each DU in the N DUs corresponds to at least one first cell, and after receiving information, such as cell channel conditions, reported by a terminal in the multiple cells, of the CU and cell loads of the multiple cells sent by the multiple DUs, the CU analyzes the received information, so as to determine the multiple first cells that satisfy the combining condition from the multiple cells.

302. The CU determines configuration information of each DU according to the plurality of first cells respectively, wherein each DU corresponds to at least one first cell, the configuration information of each DU is used for merging configuration of the at least one first cell, so that the plurality of first cells are merged to form a logical cell, the logical cell has a first physical cell identifier, the configuration information of each DU comprises a second physical cell identifier of each first cell in the at least one first cell and indication information of the logical cell, the indication information of the logical cell is used for indicating the first physical cell identifier, and the second physical cell identifier is used for indicating one first cell in the plurality of first cells meeting merging conditions before being merged into the logical cell.

In this embodiment of the present application, the configuration information of each DU is used for configuring at least one first cell corresponding to each DU, so that a plurality of first cells are merged to form one logical cell, and the logical cell includes a plurality of first cells. It should be understood that one logical cell may be formed by one or more DUs by merging and configuring the respective corresponding first cells.

In this embodiment, after the CU determines, according to the cell quality of the multiple cells, at least one first cell corresponding to each DU in the N DUs, the CU determines, according to the determined at least one first cell corresponding to each DU, configuration information for each DU.

In this embodiment of the present application, the configuration information of each DU includes a second physical cell identifier of at least one first cell corresponding to each DU and indication information of a logical cell, where the indication information of the logical cell is used to indicate the first physical cell identifier of the logical cell. In this embodiment, the second physical cell identifier of the first cell refers to an original physical cell identifier used before the first cell is merged, after the plurality of first cells are merged into the logical cell, the plurality of first cells will adopt one same physical cell identifier, the logical cell has one first physical cell identifier, the same physical cell identifier adopted by the plurality of cells is the first physical cell identifier of the logical cell, and the indication information of the logical cell is used for indicating the first physical cell identifier of the logical cell. In this embodiment, the first physical cell identifier and the second physical cell identifier may be at least one of a PCI and a CGI. Taking the logical cell as the SFN logical cell as an example: the second physical cell identifier of the first cell may be at least one of the PCI and the CGI of the first cell before the combining, or may be another type of cell identifier; after the combination, all the first cells in the SFN logical cell all adopt one same PCI or CGI, and the indication information of the SFN logical cell may be an identifier of the same PCI or CGI, or optionally, may also be other indication information for indicating the same PCI or CGI, which is not limited in this embodiment of the present application.

Optionally, in this embodiment of the present application, the plurality of first cells forming the logical cell may include a primary cell and at least one secondary cell. A CU can randomly select one first cell from a plurality of first cells or select one first cell as a main cell according to a certain rule, and after the main cell is determined, the rest first cells are all auxiliary cells; the primary cell may also be a first cell that completes configuration first, and the first cell that completes configuration first is defaulted to be the primary cell, and the subsequent first cells that complete configuration are all secondary cells. Taking the logical cell as an SFN logical cell as an example: in this embodiment of the present application, all first cells in a logical cell share a capacity resource of a primary cell, and each secondary cell transmits a radio signal that is the same as the primary cell at the same time and the same frequency by using a PCI or a CGI that is the same as the primary cell, so in this embodiment of the present application, the indication information of the logical cell may be indication information of the primary cell, specifically, the indication information may be a PCI or a CGI that corresponds to the primary cell, or other second physical cell identifier that is used for indicating the primary cell, for example, a character number that corresponds to the primary cell, and the present application does not limit this. According to the second physical cell identifier in the configuration information and the indication information of the primary cell, each DU configures the corresponding first cell to form a logical cell, and all the first cells in the formed SFN logical cell use the PCI or CGI of the primary cell, that is, multiple radio frequency modules in the SFN logical cell transmit the same data on the same time-frequency resource. For example: according to the cell quality of a plurality of cells, a CU determines that a cell 11 and a cell12 corresponding to a DU1, a cell 21 corresponding to a DU2 and a cell 32 corresponding to a DU3 are first cells meeting a merging condition, wherein the cell 21 corresponding to the DU2 is a main cell in a logic cell, and the other three first cells are auxiliary cells; the CU determines configuration information of DU1, DU2, and DU3 from the four cells, wherein, the configuration information of DU1 includes the second physical cell id of cell 11 and cell12 corresponding to DU1 and the indication information of cell 21, instructing DU1 to configure its corresponding cell 11 and cell12, the same physical cell identity as that of the cell 21 is adopted by the cell 11 and the cell12, the configuration information of the DU2 includes the second physical cell identity of the cell 21 corresponding to the DU2 and the indication information of the cell 21, is used to instruct the DU2 to configure the cell 21, configure the cell 21 as a primary cell, the configuration information of the DU3 includes the second physical cell identifier of the cell 32 and the instruction information of the cell 21, which is used to instruct the DU3 to configure the cell 32, and make the cell 32 use the same second physical cell identifier as the cell 21, where the cell 21 is a primary cell, the second physical cell identity of the cell 21 is therefore the first physical cell identity of the logical cell. It should be understood that the CU may also configure a PCI or CGI for the primary cell and the secondary cell that is not originally used by the primary cell or the secondary cell.

In this embodiment of the present application, the configuration information of each DU may be presented in a form of a list, where the list lists the second physical cell identifier of at least one first cell and the indication information of the logical cell corresponding to each DU. After each DU receives the corresponding configuration information, it may directly configure the corresponding first cell according to the second physical cell identifier and the indication information of the logical cell in the list, so as to form the logical cell. For example, in the embodiment of the present application, the indication information of the logical cell is indication information of a primary cell, in the embodiment of the present application, there are 3 DUs corresponding to the first cell, that is, N is 3, and the DU1, the DU2, and the DU3 are respectively, the first cell corresponding to the DU1 is a cell 11 and a cell12, the first cell corresponding to the DU2 is a cell 21 and a cell 22, the first cell corresponding to the DU3 is a cell 31, and the cell 21 corresponding to the DU2 is the primary cell. Taking the configuration information of DU1 as an example for introduction, the configuration information of DU1 is presented in the form of a cell list (one) in table 1, in which second physical cell identities PCI 11 and PCI 12 of cell 11 and cell12 are listed respectively, and indication information PCI21 of the cell 21 corresponding to DU2 as the primary cell, and after receiving the configuration information sent by the CU, DU1, according to the second physical cell identifiers PCI 11 and PCI 12 in the cell list (one), it is determined that the cell 11 and the cell12 are the first cell from one or more cells corresponding to the DU1, according to the second physical cell identifier of the primary cell in the cell list (one), namely the PCI21 corresponding to the cell 21, the original PCI 11 and PCI 12 of the cell 11 and the cell12 are changed into the PCI mark same as the PCI mark of the cell 21, namely, PCI21, so that the radio frequency modules corresponding to cell 11 and cell12 transmit the same data on the same time-frequency resource as cell 21; optionally, the indication information of the main cell 21 in the list may also be other types of information used for indicating that the main cell is the cell 21, for example, the indication information may be the unique number 21 of the cell 21, as shown in the cell list (ii) of table 2, the DU1 may determine that the main cell is the cell 21 corresponding to the DU2 according to the number 21, and determine that the PCI identifier of the cell 21 is the PCI21, then change the original PCI 11 and PCI 12 of the cell 11 and the cell12 to the PCI21, and use the same PCI identifier as the cell 21 for the successfully configured cell 11 and cell 12; optionally, the list may include, in addition to the second physical cell identifiers of the cells 11 and 12 and the indication information of the cell 21, information of secondary cells corresponding to other DUs that form the logical cell, as shown in the cell list (iii) of table 3, where the cell 31 corresponding to the cell 22 and the DU3 corresponding to the DU2 is the PCI identifiers PCI 22 and PCI 31 of the two remaining secondary cells in the logical cell.

Table 1 cell list (one) of DU1

Second physical cell identity	PCI 11
		Second physical cell identity	PCI 12
Indication information of primary cell	PCI 21

TABLE 2 cell List (II) of DU1

Second physical cell identity	PCI 11
		Second physical cell identity	PCI 12
Indication information of primary cell	21

Table 3 cell list of DU1 (three)

Second physical cell identity	PCI 11
		Second physical cell identity	PCI 12
Indication information of primary cell	21
		Second physical cell identity of other cells	PCI 22
Second physical cell identity of other cells	PCI 31

Optionally, in addition to the second physical cell identifier of each first cell in at least one first cell corresponding to each DU and the indication information of the logical cell, the configuration information of each DU in this embodiment may also include a decision threshold, where the decision threshold may be determined by a CU according to cell qualities of multiple cells, and it should be noted that the decision threshold in this embodiment is only an example of a name, and should not be construed as a limitation to this application. Taking the logical cell as the SFN logical cell as an example, after the configuration of the SFN logical cell is completed according to the configuration information, each DU may select a suitable first cell in the SFN logical cell according to the decision threshold in the configuration information to provide a communication service for the target terminal. The target terminal is one located in the SFN logical cell. Specifically, for example, the SFN logical cell includes three first cells, which are cell 11, cell12, and cell 21, and the three first cells correspond to RRU1, RRU2, and RRU3, respectively, and when the channel quality from the target terminal to the RRU is higher than the decision threshold, the RRU is scheduled by one or more DUs corresponding to the SFN logical cell to provide a communication service for the target terminal. Illustratively, according to the channel conditions of the target terminal relative to the three first cells, that is, the RSRP and/or SINR measurement results of the three first cells, if only the channel qualities of the RRU1 and the RRU2 are higher than the decision threshold, one or more DUs corresponding to the RRU1 and the RRU2 jointly schedule the RRU1 and the RRU2 to provide communication service for the target terminal. It should be noted that, because the corresponding antenna ports in different radio frequency modules are different, the target terminal may implement measurement of channel conditions of the three first cells based on the physical layer.

Optionally, the configuration information in this embodiment of the application may include, in addition to the second physical cell identifier and the indication information of the logical cell of each first cell in at least one first cell corresponding to each DU, a load threshold. In the embodiment of the present application, there is a corresponding relationship between the load threshold and the decision threshold, and different load thresholds may correspond to different decision thresholds, for example, when the load threshold is a, the corresponding decision threshold is a, and when the load threshold is B, the corresponding decision threshold is B. In a possible implementation manner, in the embodiment of the present application, the configuration information further includes a load threshold in addition to the decision threshold. In another possible implementation manner, the corresponding relationship between the decision threshold and the load threshold is protocol-specified or preset, in this case, the configuration information may only include the decision threshold or the load threshold, that is, if the configuration information in the embodiment of the present application includes any one of the load threshold and the decision threshold, the other one may be determined according to the protocol-specified or preset corresponding relationship, for example, if the configuration information includes the load threshold, the DU may determine the corresponding decision threshold according to the load threshold, otherwise, if the configuration information includes the decision threshold, the DU may determine the corresponding load threshold according to the decision threshold. Specifically, after each DU in the embodiment of the present application completes configuration of a logical cell according to configuration information, a decision threshold of the logical cell may be correspondingly determined according to a load threshold that is met by a cell load of a current logical cell. It should be understood that a cell load satisfying a load threshold means that the cell load is greater than or equal to the load threshold. For example, when the cell load of the logical cell satisfies the load threshold a, the one or more DUs corresponding to the logical cell select a suitable first cell in the logical cell according to the decision threshold a corresponding to the load threshold a to provide communication service for the target terminal, and when the cell load of the logical cell satisfies the load threshold B, the one or more DUs corresponding to the logical cell select a suitable first cell according to the decision threshold B corresponding to the load threshold B to provide communication service for the target terminal. In the embodiment of the present application, the corresponding relationship between the loading threshold and the decision threshold may be a positive correlation, that is, a higher loading threshold corresponds to a larger decision threshold, and a lower loading threshold corresponds to a smaller decision threshold. Specifically, when the load threshold satisfied by the cell load of the logical cell is low, the number of terminals representing services in the logical cell is small, and in order to increase the number of edge users and ensure good user mobility, a small decision threshold can be configured, so that the possibility that the terminals are in joint scheduling is increased, that is, a plurality of first cells allocate the same time-frequency resource to the same terminal for use; with the rise of the load threshold, the decision threshold rises correspondingly, when the cell load of the logical cell meets the high load threshold, the number of terminals served in the logical cell is large, at this time, if a joint scheduling mode is adopted, although the communication service quality of a single terminal can be improved, the performance of the whole system is reduced, therefore, in order to perform space division multiplexing and meet the requirement of the total capacity of the cell, a large decision threshold is configured, so that under the high load condition, a DU can provide communication service for a target terminal in a mode of independently scheduling first cells, that is, one first cell provides communication service for one terminal, and a plurality of different first cells in the logical cell can respectively allocate the same time-frequency resources for different terminals and respectively receive data sent by each terminal, thereby ensuring the performance of the whole system, the total capacity of the cell under the condition of high load is satisfied.

In addition, the configuration information in the embodiment of the present application may further include other types of information, for example, load information of different cells, a moving speed of a user, and the like, which is not limited in the embodiment of the present application.

303. The CU sends configuration information to each DU.

In this embodiment, after determining the configuration information of each DU, a CU sends corresponding configuration information to each DU, so that each DU can configure its corresponding first cell according to the second physical cell identifier of the first cell and the indication information of the logical cell in the configuration information, to form the logical cell.

304. And each DU completes the merging configuration of at least one corresponding first cell according to the configuration information.

In this embodiment, after receiving the configuration information sent by the CU, each DU performs merging configuration on a corresponding first cell according to a second physical cell identifier of the first cell and indication information of a logical cell in the configuration information.

305. The CU receives response information sent by each DU, and the response information sent by each DU is used for indicating that each DU completes the merging configuration of the at least one first cell.

In this embodiment, after each DU completes the configuration of the corresponding first cell according to the configuration information sent by the CU, the DU sends response information indicating that the configuration is successful to the CU. Optionally, the response information sent by each DU to the CU may include a second physical cell identifier of the first cell that successfully completes configuration and indication information of the logical cell corresponding to each DU.

306. The CU receives first information sent by a target DU, wherein the first information comprises the identification of a target terminal located in the logical cell, and the target DU is one of N DUs.

In this embodiment of the application, after a logical cell is formed, a target DU of the N DUs sends first information to the CU according to configuration information sent by the CU, where the first information includes an identifier of a target terminal, and the first information is used for the CU to send, to the target DU, channel quality of the target terminal relative to each first cell in the logical cell, and the channel quality of each first cell may be at least one of RSRP and SINR, or optionally, other information that may be used to indicate the channel quality of the first cell, which is not limited herein.

It should be noted that, in this embodiment of the present application, the target DU may be any selected DU or one DU selected according to a certain rule, for example, the target DU may be a first DU configured to complete a corresponding first cell, and optionally, when a plurality of first cells forming a logical cell include a primary cell and at least one secondary cell, the target DU may be a DU corresponding to the primary cell.

307. And the CU sends second information to the target DU according to the first information, wherein the second information comprises the channel quality of the target terminal relative to each first cell in the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU, the second information is used for the target DU to determine a serving cell for the target terminal to provide communication service, and the serving cell is at least one of the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU.

In this embodiment, after receiving the first information sent by the target DU, the CU analyzes the first information, and then sends, to the target DU, second information that includes channel quality of the target terminal with respect to each of all first cells corresponding to the target DU, where the target DU may allocate a serving cell providing a communication service to the target terminal according to the channel quality of the target terminal with respect to each of all first cells corresponding to the target DU. Illustratively, the channel quality of the target terminal with respect to each first cell corresponding to the target DU is reported to the CU by the target terminal through the target DU. In other words, only CUs have the channel quality of the target terminal. In this embodiment, the serving cell is at least one first cell among all first cells corresponding to the target DU. It should be noted that, in this embodiment of the application, each first cell corresponds to one radio frequency module, and therefore, the target DU determines, for the target terminal, a serving cell that provides a communication service, which may specifically refer to that the radio frequency module corresponding to the target DU schedules the serving cell to provide the communication service for the target terminal.

It should be noted that, steps 305 to 307 in the embodiment of the present application are optional steps, and the sequence of steps 306, 307 and step 305 in the embodiment of the present application is not specifically limited.

The embodiment of the application adopts a method for cell merging under a central unit CU-distributed unit DU framework, a CU determines a plurality of first cells needing to be merged according to the cell quality of the plurality of cells, then configuration information is sent to each corresponding DU, and each DU directly completes the configuration of the corresponding first cell according to the configuration information, so that a base station can flexibly configure the cells according to the network condition, and the problem that the cell merging mode cannot be changed is solved.

The method for merging cells under the CU-DU architecture in the embodiment of the present application is described above from the CU side, and the method for merging cells under the CU-DU architecture in the embodiment of the present application is described next from the DU side, please refer to fig. 4 and fig. 5.

Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of another embodiment of a method for cell merging under a CU-DU architecture in an embodiment of the present application.

Referring to fig. 4, another embodiment of the method for cell merging under CU-DU architecture in the embodiment of the present application may include:

401. each DU of the N DUs receives configuration information sent by the CU, each DU corresponds to at least one first cell, the configuration information of each DU is used for the combination configuration of the at least one first cell, and the first cell is a cell meeting the combination condition.

In this embodiment, a CU may be connected to one or more DUs, and one DU may correspond to one or more cells, where each cell has at least one of a PCI and a CGI. The N DUs in the embodiment of the present application correspond to some or all of the DUs connected to the CU. In this embodiment, a cell may refer to a wireless communication area covered by one radio frequency module, and specifically, one radio frequency module may be one RRU, RFC, or AAU. The first cell in this embodiment refers to each cell that satisfies the combining condition in one or more cells corresponding to the DU. In the embodiment of the present application, at least two first cells satisfying the combining condition are provided. Each DU in the N DUs may have one or more corresponding first cells; the plurality of first cells may correspond to the same DU, that is, N is 1, or may correspond to different DUs, that is, N >1, which is not limited in the embodiments of the present application. The logical cell in the embodiment of the present application may be an SFN logical cell. In this embodiment of the present application, each DU in the N DUs may have one or more corresponding first cells.

Optionally, in this embodiment of the present application, the configuration information of each DU may be determined by the CU according to cell qualities of multiple cells corresponding to some or all DUs connected to the CU, first, screening multiple first cells meeting a combining condition from the multiple cells, where the multiple first cells correspond to N DUs, and then, according to the screened multiple first cells. In this embodiment, the cell quality may be information that may reflect the communication situation in the cell, such as channel condition information of the cell, load information of the cell, the number of terminals in the cell, or the moving rate of the terminal. For example, in this embodiment of the present application, the channel condition information of the cell may include at least one of RSRP and SINR of the plurality of terminals, relative to the radio frequency module in the cell, obtained through testing by the plurality of terminals in the cell, and the CU may determine the number of edge users of the cell according to the RSRP and/or SINR of the plurality of terminals in the cell, and then determine the plurality of first cells from the plurality of cells based on the number of edge users of each cell. In this embodiment, the channel condition information of the cell, the number of terminals in the cell, or the moving speed of the terminal may be reported to the CU by the terminal, and the load of the cell may be reported to the CU by the corresponding DU. The corresponding configuration information sent by the CU received by each DU may include a second physical cell identifier of each first cell in the at least one first cell of each DU and indication information of the logical cell, where the indication information of the logical cell is used to indicate a first physical cell identifier of the logical cell, and the second physical cell identifier is used to indicate one first cell in the plurality of first cells that satisfies the combining condition before being combined into the logical cell. Wherein the first physical cell identity and the second physical cell identity may be at least one of a PCI and a CGI. In the embodiment of the present application, the plurality of first cells forming the logical cell may include a primary cell and at least one secondary cell. Taking a logical cell as an SFN logical cell as an example, all the secondary cells in the logical cell in the embodiment of the present application may share a capacity resource of the primary cell, and each secondary cell transmits a radio signal that is the same as the primary cell on the same frequency at the same time by using the same PCI or CGI as the primary cell. The configuration information of each DU may be presented in the form of a list, where the second physical cell identity of the at least one first cell corresponding to each DU and the indication information of the logical cell are listed in the list.

Optionally, in this embodiment, the configuration information of each DU may include, in addition to the second physical cell identifier of each first cell in at least one first cell corresponding to each DU and the indication information of the logical cell, a decision threshold, where the decision threshold may be determined by the CU according to the cell quality of multiple cells; in another possible implementation manner, the configuration information of each DU may include, in addition to the second physical cell identifier and the indication information of the logical cell of each first cell in at least one first cell corresponding to each DU, a load threshold, where a correspondence relationship exists between the load threshold and a decision threshold, and different load thresholds may correspond to different decision thresholds; in another possible implementation manner, in the embodiment of the present application, the configuration information further includes a load threshold in addition to the decision threshold; in another possible implementation manner, the corresponding relationship between the decision threshold and the loading threshold is protocol-specified or preset, in which case, the configuration information may only include the decision threshold or the loading threshold.

It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present application, the related contents in step 201 in fig. 2, step 301 in fig. 3, and step 302 may also be referred to for understanding, and are not described herein again.

402. Each DU performs merging configuration of at least one first cell according to the configuration information, so that the N DUs merge multiple first cells into one logical cell, and the logical cell has a first physical cell identity.

In this embodiment, after receiving the corresponding configuration information sent by the CU, each DU configures at least one first cell according to the configuration information, so that a plurality of first cells corresponding to the N DUs are combined to form one logical cell. The plurality of first cells respectively have the originally used second physical cell identifiers before being merged, and after the plurality of first cells are merged to form the logical cell, the plurality of first cells adopt one same physical cell identifier, namely one first physical cell identifier of the logical cell. The first physical cell identifier and the second physical cell identifier in the embodiment of the present application may be at least one of a PCI and a CGI.

The embodiment of the application adopts a method for cell merging under a central unit CU-distributed unit DU framework, and each DU selects and configures a corresponding cell according to the configuration information distributed by the CU, so that the problem that the cell merging mode cannot be changed is solved, and the flexible configuration of the base station for cell merging is realized.

Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of another embodiment of a method for cell merging under a CU-DU architecture in an embodiment of the present application.

Referring to fig. 5, another embodiment of the method for cell merging under CU-DU architecture in the embodiment of the present application may include:

501. each DU in the N DUs receives configuration information sent by the CU, each DU corresponds to at least one first cell, the configuration information of each DU is used for merging configuration of the at least one first cell, and the first cell is a cell that satisfies a merging condition.

The embodiment of the present application can be understood with reference to step 401 in fig. 4, and is not described herein again.

502. Each DU performs merging configuration of the at least one first cell according to the configuration information, so that the N DUs merge the plurality of first cells into one logical cell, and the logical cell has a first physical cell identity.

In this embodiment, after receiving the corresponding configuration information sent by the CU, each DU configures the corresponding first cell according to the corresponding configuration information, so that a plurality of first cells corresponding to the N DUs are combined to form one logical cell.

The embodiment of the present application can be understood with reference to step 402 in fig. 4, and is not described herein again.

503. Each DU sends response information to the CU, the response information indicating that each DU completes the combining configuration of the at least one first cell.

In this embodiment, each DU sends, to a CU, configuration-completed response information after completing configuration of a corresponding first cell according to corresponding configuration information sent by the CU.

Optionally, the response information sent by each DU to the CU may include a second physical cell identifier of the first cell that successfully completes configuration and indication information of the logical cell corresponding to each DU. In this embodiment, if the plurality of first cells forming the logical cell include a primary cell and at least one secondary cell, the indication information of the logical cell may be indication information of the primary cell. Embodiments of the present application may also be understood with reference to step 305 in fig. 3.

504. And the target DU sends first information to the CU, wherein the first information comprises the identification of a target terminal positioned in the logical cell, and the target DU is one of the N DUs.

In this embodiment, after each DU in the N DUs completes configuration of the corresponding first cell according to the configuration information sent by the CU, and a logical cell is formed, the target DU in the N DUs sends the first information to the CU. The first information includes an identifier of the target terminal, and the first information is used to request, from the CU, a channel quality of the target terminal with respect to each of the logical cells, where the channel quality of each cell may be at least one of RSRP or SINR, and optionally, may also be other information that may be used to indicate a channel condition of the cell, which is not limited herein.

The target DU in this embodiment of the present application may be any selected DU or one DU selected according to a certain rule, for example, the target DU may be a first DU configured to complete a corresponding first cell, and optionally, when a plurality of first cells forming a logical cell include a primary cell and at least one secondary cell, the target DU may be a DU corresponding to the primary cell.

505. And the target DU receives second information sent by the CU according to the first information, wherein the second information comprises the channel quality of the target terminal relative to each first cell in at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU.

In the embodiment of the present application, after receiving first information sent by a target DU, a CU performs parsing on the first information, determines, according to an identifier of a target terminal in the first information, channel quality of the target terminal with respect to each of all first cells corresponding to the target DU, and then generates corresponding second information and sends the second information to the target DU. Illustratively, the channel quality of the target terminal with respect to each first cell corresponding to the target DU is reported to the CU by the target terminal through the target DU. In other words, only CUs have the channel quality of the target terminal.

506. And the target DU determines a serving cell for providing communication service for the target terminal according to the second information, wherein the serving cell is at least one of the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU.

In this embodiment, the serving cell is at least one first cell in all first cells corresponding to the target DU. The second information in this embodiment of the application includes channel quality of the target terminal with respect to each of all first cells corresponding to the target DU, where the target DU determines, according to the second information, a serving cell that provides a communication service for the target terminal, and specifically, the target DU may rank, according to the second information sent by the CU, channel quality, such as RSRP and/or SINR, of the target terminal with respect to each of the first cells corresponding to the target DU, for example, rank the channel quality in order from high to low, and then filter the serving cell that provides the communication service for the target terminal according to a ranking result.

Optionally, in step 501 of this embodiment, the configuration information sent by the CU to the DU may include a decision threshold in addition to the second physical cell identifier of each first cell in at least one first cell corresponding to each DU and the indication information of the logical cell. In other possible implementation manners, the configuration information may include, in addition to the second physical cell identifier of each first cell in the at least one first cell corresponding to each DU and the indication information of the logical cell, at least one of a decision threshold and a load threshold, where a corresponding relationship exists between the decision threshold and the load threshold, that is, if the configuration information includes the load threshold but does not include the decision threshold, the DU may also determine the corresponding decision threshold according to the load threshold. In various possible implementation manners of the configuration information, the DU may sequence the channel quality of the target terminal with respect to the radio frequency modules in each first cell, and then determine a set of radio frequency modules that satisfy the decision threshold, where the corresponding set of first cells may be used as a serving cell providing communication service for the target terminal. It should be noted that, in this embodiment of the application, each first cell corresponds to one radio frequency module, and therefore, the target DU determines, for the target terminal, a serving cell that provides a communication service, specifically, the radio frequency module corresponding to the target DU scheduling serving cell provides the communication service for the target terminal.

It should be noted that, steps 503 to 506 in the embodiment of the present application are optional steps, and the sequence of steps 504-506 and step 503 is not specifically limited in the embodiment of the present application.

The method for cell merging under the CU-DU architecture provided in the embodiment of the present application is introduced above. It is understood that, in the embodiment of the present application, the CU and the DU include hardware structures and/or software modules for performing the functions to implement the above functions. Those of skill in the art will readily appreciate that the various illustrative modules and algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as hardware or combinations of hardware and computer software. Whether a function is performed as hardware or computer software drives hardware depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the solution. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present application.

Described in terms of hardware structures, the CU or each DU in fig. 1 to fig. 5 may be implemented by one entity device, may also be implemented by multiple entity devices together, and may also be a logic function module in one entity device, which is not specifically limited in this embodiment of the present invention.

For example, a CU or respective DU may be implemented by the network device in fig. 6. Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram illustrating a hardware structure of a network device according to an embodiment of the present application. The network device comprises at least one processor 601, communication lines 602, memory 603 and at least one communication interface 604.

The processor 601 may be a general processing unit (CPU), a microprocessor, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or one or more integrated circuits configured to control the execution of programs according to the present disclosure.

The communication link 602 may include a path for transmitting information between the aforementioned components.

The communication interface 604 may be any device, such as a transceiver, for communicating with other devices or communication networks, such as an ethernet, a Radio Access Network (RAN), a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), etc.

Memory 603 may be a read-only memory (ROM) or other type of static storage device that can store static information and instructions, a Random Access Memory (RAM) or other type of dynamic storage device that can store information and instructions, an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), a compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM) or other optical disc storage, optical disc storage (including compact disc, laser disc, optical disc, digital versatile disc, blu-ray disc, etc.), magnetic disk storage media or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium that can be used to carry or store desired program code in the form of instructions or data structures and that can be accessed by a computer, but is not limited to such. The memory may be separate and coupled to the processor via a communication link 602. The memory may also be integral to the processor.

The memory 603 is used for storing computer-executable instructions for executing the present application, and is controlled by the processor 601 to execute the instructions. The processor 601 is configured to execute computer-executable instructions stored in the memory 603, so as to implement the method for cell merging under CU-DU architecture provided in the following embodiments of the present application.

Optionally, the computer-executable instructions in the embodiments of the present application may also be referred to as application program codes, which are not specifically limited in the embodiments of the present application.

In particular implementations, processor 601 may include one or more CPUs such as CPU0 and CPU1 in fig. 6 as an example.

In particular implementations, network device may include multiple processors, such as processor 601 and processor 607 of FIG. 6, for example, as an embodiment. Each of these processors may be a single-core (single-CPU) processor or a multi-core (multi-CPU) processor. A processor herein may refer to one or more devices, circuits, and/or processing cores for processing data (e.g., computer program instructions).

In particular implementations, network devices may also include an output device 605 and an input device 606, as one embodiment. Output device 605 is in communication with processor 601 and may display information in a variety of ways. For example, the output device 605 may be a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), a Light Emitting Diode (LED) display device, a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) display device, a projector (projector), or the like. The input device 606 is in communication with the processor 601 and may receive user input in a variety of ways. For example, the input device 606 may be a mouse, a keyboard, a touch screen device, or a sensing device, among others.

The network device may be a general-purpose device or a special-purpose device. In a specific implementation, the network device may be a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a network server, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a wireless terminal device, an embedded device, or a device with a similar structure as in fig. 6. The embodiment of the application does not limit the type of the network equipment.

In the embodiment of the present application, functional modules may be divided for CUs or DUs according to the above method examples, for example, each functional module may be divided for each function, or two or more functions may be integrated into one processing module. The integrated module can be realized in a hardware mode, and can also be realized in a software functional module mode. It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present application, the division of the module is schematic, and is only one logic function division, and there may be another division manner in actual implementation.

For example, in a case that each functional module is divided in an integrated manner, fig. 7 and 8 respectively show a cell merging apparatus under a CU-DU architecture according to an embodiment of the present application.

Referring to fig. 7, an embodiment of the present invention provides a schematic structural diagram of a cell merging device under a CU-DU architecture, where the cell merging device is a CU device 700, and the cell merging device may include:

an obtaining module 701, configured to obtain configuration information of each DU in N DUs, where each DU corresponds to at least one first cell, the configuration information of each DU is used for merging configuration of the at least one first cell, the first cell is a cell that meets a merging condition, and N is an integer greater than 0;

a sending module 702, configured to send the configuration information obtained by the obtaining module 701 to each DU, so that the N DUs merge multiple first cells into one logical cell, where the logical cell has a first physical cell identity.

In the embodiment of the present application, a CU determines configuration information for cell merging, and sends corresponding coordination information to each DU, so that each DU configures a corresponding first cell according to the configuration information, thereby solving a problem that a cell merging manner cannot be changed, and implementing flexible configuration of a base station for cell merging.

Optionally, as an embodiment, the obtaining module 701 may include:

a selecting unit 7011, configured to screen, according to cell qualities of multiple cells, the multiple first cells that meet the combining condition from the multiple cells, where the N DUs correspond to the multiple first cells;

a determining unit 7012, configured to determine, according to the multiple first cells screened by the selecting unit 7011, configuration information of each DU, where the configuration information of each DU includes a second physical cell identifier of each first cell in the at least one first cell and indication information of the logical cell, where the indication information of the logical cell is used to indicate the first physical cell identifier, and the second physical cell identifier is used to indicate one of the multiple first cells that satisfy the combining condition before being combined into the logical cell.

Optionally, as an embodiment, the CU device 700 further includes:

a receiving module 703, configured to receive first information sent by a target DU, where the first information includes an identifier of a target terminal located in the logical cell, and the target DU is one of the N DUs;

the sending module 702 is further configured to send, according to the first information received by the receiving module 703, second information to the target DU, where the second information includes channel quality of the target terminal relative to each first cell in the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU, and the second information is used by the target DU to determine, for the target terminal, a serving cell providing a communication service, where the serving cell is at least one of the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU.

Optionally, as an embodiment, the configuration information further includes a decision threshold, where the decision threshold is determined by the CU according to cell qualities of the multiple cells, the decision threshold is used by the target DU to determine the serving cell providing a communication service for the target terminal, and the serving cell is at least one of the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU whose channel quality satisfies the decision threshold.

Optionally, as an embodiment, the configuration information further includes a load threshold, where the load threshold is used for determining, by the target DU, a corresponding decision threshold according to the cell load of the logical cell.

Optionally, as an embodiment, the configuration information further includes a decision threshold or a load threshold, where the decision threshold and the load threshold have a corresponding relationship, and the target DU determines, according to the decision threshold, the serving cell providing the communication service for the target terminal; or, the target DU determines the decision threshold according to the relationship between the cell load of the logical cell and the load threshold, and determines the serving cell providing communication service for the target terminal according to the decision threshold. The serving cell is at least one of the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU whose channel quality satisfies the decision threshold.

Optionally, as an embodiment, the plurality of first cells include a primary cell and at least one secondary cell, and the indication information of the logical cell is indication information of the primary cell.

Optionally, as an embodiment, the receiving module 703 is further configured to receive response information sent by each DU after the sending module 702 sends the corresponding configuration information to each DU, where the response information sent by each DU is used to indicate that each DU completes the merging configuration of the at least one first cell.

Fig. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of another cell merging apparatus under CU-DU architecture according to an embodiment of the present application, where the cell merging apparatus is a DU apparatus 800, and the DU apparatus 800 may correspond to each DU of N DUs, where each DU corresponds to at least one first cell, please refer to fig. 8 in detail.

Referring to fig. 8, an embodiment of the present application further provides a DU device 800 under the CU-DU architecture, which may include:

a first receiving module 801, configured to receive corresponding configuration information sent by the CU, where the configuration information is used for merging configuration of the at least one first cell, the first cell is a cell meeting a merging condition, and N is an integer greater than 0;

a processing module 802, configured to perform merging configuration on the at least one first cell according to the configuration information received by the first receiving module 801, so that the N DUs merge multiple first cells into one logical cell, where the logical cell has a first physical cell identity.

In the embodiment of the present application, a CU determines configuration information for cell merging, and sends corresponding coordination information to each DU, so that each DU configures a corresponding first cell according to the configuration information, thereby solving the problem that a cell merging manner cannot be changed, and implementing flexible configuration of a base station for cell merging.

Optionally, as an embodiment, the configuration information corresponding to each DU includes a second physical cell identifier of each first cell in the at least one first cell and indication information of the logical cell, where the indication information of the logical cell is used to indicate the first physical cell identifier, and the second physical cell identifier is used to indicate that the second physical cell identifier is merged into one first cell in the plurality of first cells that satisfies the merging condition before the logical cell is merged, and the DU apparatus 800 further includes:

a sending module 803, configured to send, to the CU, first information after the processing module 802 performs the merging configuration of the at least one first cell, where the first information includes an identifier of a target terminal located in the logical cell;

a second receiving module 804, configured to receive second information sent by the CU after the sending module 803 sends the first information to the CU, where the second information is determined by the CU according to the first information, and the second information includes channel quality of the target terminal with respect to each first cell in the at least one first cell;

a determining module 805, configured to determine, according to the second information received by the second receiving module 804, a serving cell providing a communication service for the target terminal, where the serving cell is at least one of the first cells corresponding to the target DU.

Optionally, as an embodiment, the configuration information further includes a decision threshold, where the decision threshold is determined by the CU according to cell qualities of the multiple cells, the decision threshold is used by the target DU to determine a serving cell providing a communication service for the target terminal, and the serving cell is at least one of first cells corresponding to the target DU, where channel quality of the first cell satisfies the decision threshold.

Optionally, as an embodiment, the configuration information further includes a decision threshold or a load threshold, where the decision threshold and the load threshold have a corresponding relationship, and the determining module 805 is further configured to determine the serving cell providing the communication service for the target terminal according to the decision threshold; or, the determining module 805 is further configured to determine the decision threshold according to a relationship between a cell load of the logical cell and the load threshold, where the target DU determines, according to the decision threshold, the serving cell providing communication service for the target terminal, and the serving cell is at least one of the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU whose channel quality satisfies the decision threshold.

Optionally, as an embodiment, the sending module 803 is further configured to send, after the processing module 802 performs the combining configuration of the at least one first cell, response information to the CU, where the response information is used to indicate that the combining configuration of the at least one first cell is completed.

It should be understood that the processing module 802 and the determining module 805 in the embodiments of the present application may be implemented by a processor or a processor-related circuit component, and the first receiving module 801, the sending module 803, and the second receiving module 804 may be implemented by a transceiver or a transceiver-related circuit component.

In the present embodiment, the CU device 700 or the DU device 800 is presented in a form of dividing each functional module in an integrated manner. A "module" as used herein may refer to an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), an ASIC, a processor and memory that execute one or more software or firmware programs, an integrated logic circuit, and/or other devices that provide the described functionality. In a simple embodiment, those skilled in the art may recognize that both the CU and the DU under the CU-DU architecture provided in the embodiments of the present application may adopt the form shown in fig. 6.

For example, the processor 601 in fig. 6 may execute the instructions by calling a computer stored in the memory 603, so that the CU and the DU perform the cell merging method in the above method embodiment.

Specifically, the functions/implementation procedures of the obtaining module 701, the sending module 702, and the receiving module 703 in fig. 7, and the first receiving module 801, the processing module 802, the sending module 803, the second receiving module 804, and the determining module 805 in fig. 8 may be implemented by the processor 601 in fig. 6 calling a computer executing instruction stored in the memory 603. Alternatively, the functions/implementation procedures of the obtaining module 701 in fig. 7, the processing module 702 in fig. 8, and the determining module 705 may be implemented by the processor 601 in fig. 6 calling a computer executing instruction stored in the memory 603, and the functions/implementation procedures of the sending module 702 and the receiving module 703 in fig. 7, and the first receiving module 801, the sending module 803, and the second receiving module 804 in fig. 8 may be implemented by the communication interface 604 in fig. 6.

Since the CU device 700 and the DU device 800 provided in the embodiment of the present application can be used to perform the above cell merging method, the technical effects obtained by the CU device 700 and the DU device can refer to the above method embodiment and are not described herein again.

In the above embodiment, the CU and the DU are presented in the form of dividing each functional module in an integrated manner. Of course, in the embodiment of the present application, each functional module of the CU and the DU may be divided corresponding to each function, and this is not specifically limited in the embodiment of the present application.

Optionally, an embodiment of the present application provides a chip system, where the chip system includes a processor, and is configured to support a central unit CU functional entity to implement the cell merging method described above. In one possible design, the system-on-chip further includes a memory. The memory is used for storing program instructions and data necessary for the CU. The chip system may be formed by a chip, and may also include a chip and other discrete devices, which is not specifically limited in this embodiment of the present application.

Optionally, an embodiment of the present application provides a chip system, where the chip system includes a processor, and is configured to support a distributed unit DU functional entity to implement the cell merging method described above. In one possible design, the system-on-chip further includes a memory. The memory is used for storing the program instructions and data necessary for the DU. The chip system may be formed by a chip, and may also include a chip and other discrete devices, which is not specifically limited in this embodiment of the present application.

In the above embodiments, the implementation may be wholly or partially realized by software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof. When implemented in software, may be implemented in whole or in part in the form of a computer program product.

The computer program product includes one or more computer instructions. When loaded and executed on a computer, cause the processes or functions described in accordance with the embodiments of the application to occur, in whole or in part. The computer may be a general purpose computer, a special purpose computer, a network of computers, or other programmable device. The computer instructions may be stored in a computer readable storage medium or transmitted from one computer readable storage medium to another, for example, from one website site, computer, server, or data center to another website site, computer, server, or data center via wired (e.g., coaxial cable, fiber optic, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)) or wireless (e.g., infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.). The computer-readable storage medium can be any available medium that a computer can store or a data storage device, such as a server, a data center, etc., that is integrated with one or more available media. The usable medium may be a magnetic medium (e.g., floppy Disk, hard Disk, magnetic tape), an optical medium (e.g., DVD), or a semiconductor medium (e.g., Solid State Disk (SSD)), among others.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that all or part of the steps in the methods of the above embodiments may be implemented by associated hardware instructed by a program, which may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium, and the storage medium may include: ROM, RAM, magnetic or optical disks, and the like.

The method and apparatus for cell merging under CU-DU architecture provided in the embodiments of the present application are described in detail above, and specific examples are applied herein to explain the principles and embodiments of the present application, and the description of the embodiments above is only used to help understand the method and core ideas of the present application; meanwhile, for a person skilled in the art, according to the idea of the present application, there may be variations in the specific embodiments and the application scope, and in summary, the content of the present specification should not be construed as a limitation to the present application.

Claims

1. A method for cell merging under a central unit CU-distributed unit DU architecture is characterized by comprising the following steps:

the CU acquires configuration information of each DU in N DUs, wherein each DU corresponds to at least one first cell, the configuration information of each DU is used for combination configuration of the at least one first cell, the first cell is a cell meeting combination conditions, the first cell is determined based on cell quality of a plurality of cells, and N is an integer greater than 0;

the CU sends the configuration information to each DU, so that the N DUs combine a plurality of first cells into one logical cell, where the logical cell has a first physical cell identity, and the logical cell is a single frequency network SFN logical cell.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the CU obtains configuration information of each DU of the N DUs, and wherein the obtaining comprises:

the CU screens the plurality of first cells meeting the merging condition from the plurality of cells according to the cell quality of the plurality of cells, wherein the N DUs correspond to the plurality of first cells;

the CU determines configuration information of each DU according to the first cells respectively, wherein the configuration information of each DU comprises a second physical cell identifier of each first cell in the at least one first cell and indication information of the logical cell, the indication information of the logical cell is used for indicating the first physical cell identifier, and the second physical cell identifier is used for indicating one first cell in the first cells meeting the combination condition before being combined into the logical cell.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the CU sends corresponding configuration information to each DU, so that after the N DUs combine the first cells into one logical cell, the method further comprises:

the CU receives first information sent by a target DU, wherein the first information comprises an identification of a target terminal located in the logical cell, and the target DU is one of the N DUs;

and the CU sends second information to the target DU according to the first information, wherein the second information comprises the channel quality of the target terminal relative to each first cell in the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU, the second information is used for the target DU to determine a serving cell for providing communication service for the target terminal, and the serving cell is at least one of the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the configuration information further includes a decision threshold, and wherein the decision threshold is determined by the CU according to cell qualities of the plurality of cells, and wherein the decision threshold is used by the target DU to determine the serving cell providing communication service for the target terminal, and wherein the serving cell is at least one of the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU for which channel quality satisfies the decision threshold.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the configuration information further includes a load threshold, and the load threshold is used for determining, by the target DU, a corresponding decision threshold according to a cell load of the logical cell.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the configuration information further includes a decision threshold or a loading threshold, the decision threshold and the loading threshold have a corresponding relationship, and the target DU determines the serving cell providing the communication service for the target terminal according to the decision threshold; or, the target DU determines the decision threshold according to a relationship between the cell load of the logical cell and the load threshold, and determines the serving cell providing communication service for the target terminal according to the decision threshold; the serving cell is at least one of the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU whose channel quality satisfies the decision threshold.

7. The method according to any of claims 2-6, wherein the plurality of first cells includes a primary cell and at least one secondary cell, and the indication information of the logical cell is indication information of the primary cell.

8. The method according to any of claims 1-6, wherein after sending the configuration information to each DU, the CU further comprises:

and the CU receives response information sent by each DU, wherein the response information sent by each DU is used for indicating that each DU completes the merging configuration of the at least one first cell.

9. A method for cell merging under a central unit CU-distributed unit DU architecture is characterized by comprising the following steps:

each DU in the N DUs receives configuration information of each DU sent by the CU, wherein each DU corresponds to at least one first cell, the configuration information of each DU is used for combination configuration of the at least one first cell, the first cell is a cell meeting combination conditions, the first cell is determined based on cell quality of a plurality of cells, and N is an integer greater than 0;

and each DU carries out merging configuration of the at least one first cell according to the configuration information so that the N DUs merge a plurality of first cells into one logical cell, the logical cell has a first physical cell identifier, and the logical cell is a single frequency network SFN logical cell.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the configuration information of each DU includes a second physical cell identifier of each first cell in the at least one first cell and indication information of the logical cell, the indication information of the logical cell is used for indicating the first physical cell identifier, the second physical cell identifier is used for indicating one first cell in the plurality of first cells that satisfies the combining condition before being combined into the logical cell, and after the configuration information of each DU performs the combining configuration of the at least one first cell, the method further includes:

a target DU sends first information to the CU, wherein the first information comprises an identifier of a target terminal located in the logical cell, and the target DU is one of the N DUs;

the target DU receives second information sent by the CU, wherein the second information is determined by the CU according to the first information, and the second information comprises the channel quality of the target terminal relative to each first cell in the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU;

and the target DU determines a serving cell for providing communication service for the target terminal according to the second information, wherein the serving cell is at least one of the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the configuration information further includes a decision threshold, and wherein the decision threshold is determined by the CU according to cell qualities of the plurality of cells, and the decision threshold is used by the target DU to determine a serving cell for the target terminal to provide communication service, and the serving cell is at least one of the first cells corresponding to the target DU whose channel quality satisfies the decision threshold.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the configuration information further includes a load threshold, and the load threshold is used for determining, by the target DU, a corresponding decision threshold according to a cell load of the logical cell.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the configuration information further includes a decision threshold or a loading threshold, the decision threshold and the loading threshold have a corresponding relationship, and the target DU determines the serving cell providing the communication service for the target terminal according to the decision threshold; or, the target DU determines the decision threshold according to the relationship between the cell load of the logical cell and the load threshold, and determines the serving cell providing communication service for the target terminal according to the decision threshold; the serving cell is at least one of the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU whose channel quality satisfies the decision threshold.

14. The method according to any of claims 10-13, wherein the plurality of first cells includes a primary cell and at least one secondary cell, and the indication information of the logical cell is indication information of the primary cell.

15. The method according to any of claims 9-13, wherein after the performing, according to the configuration information, the merged configuration of the at least one first cell by each DU, the method further comprises:

and each DU sends response information to the CU, wherein the response information sent by each DU is used for indicating that each DU completes the merging configuration of the at least one first cell.

16. A cell merging apparatus under a central unit CU-distributed unit DU architecture, the apparatus comprising:

an obtaining module, configured to obtain configuration information of each DU of N DUs, where each DU corresponds to at least one first cell, the configuration information of each DU is used for merging configuration of the at least one first cell, the first cell is a cell that meets a merging condition, the first cell is determined based on cell qualities of multiple cells, and N is an integer greater than 0;

a sending module, configured to send the configuration information obtained by the obtaining module to each DU, so that the N DUs merge multiple first cells into one logical cell, where the logical cell has a first physical cell identifier, and the logical cell is a single frequency network SFN logical cell.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the obtaining module comprises:

a selecting unit, configured to screen, according to cell qualities of multiple cells, the multiple first cells that meet the combining condition from the multiple cells, where the N DUs correspond to the multiple first cells;

a determining unit, configured to determine configuration information of each DU according to the plurality of first cells screened by the selecting unit, where the configuration information of each DU includes a second physical cell identifier of each first cell in the at least one first cell and indication information of the logical cell, the indication information of the logical cell is used to indicate the first physical cell identifier, and the second physical cell identifier is used to indicate one of the plurality of first cells that satisfy the combining condition before being combined into the logical cell.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, further comprising:

a receiving module, configured to receive first information sent by a target DU, where the first information includes an identifier of a target terminal located in the logical cell, and the target DU is one of the N DUs;

the sending module is further configured to send, to the target DU, second information according to the first information received by the receiving module, where the second information includes channel quality of the target terminal relative to each first cell in the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU, and the second information is used by the target DU to determine, for the target terminal, a serving cell providing a communication service, where the serving cell is at least one of the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the configuration information further includes a decision threshold, and wherein the decision threshold is determined by the CU according to cell qualities of the plurality of cells, and wherein the decision threshold is used by the target DU to determine the serving cell providing communication service for the target terminal, and wherein the serving cell is at least one of the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU whose channel quality satisfies the decision threshold.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the configuration information further includes a load threshold, and the load threshold is used for the target DU to determine a corresponding decision threshold according to a cell load of the logical cell.

21. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the configuration information further includes a decision threshold or a loading threshold, the decision threshold and the loading threshold have a corresponding relationship, and the target DU determines the serving cell providing communication service for the target terminal according to the decision threshold; or, the target DU determines the decision threshold according to a relationship between the cell load of the logical cell and the load threshold, and determines the serving cell providing communication service for the target terminal according to the decision threshold; the serving cell is at least one of the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU whose channel quality satisfies the decision threshold.

22. The apparatus according to any of claims 17-21, wherein the plurality of first cells includes a primary cell and at least one secondary cell, and the indication information of the logical cell is indication information of the primary cell.

23. The apparatus according to any one of claims 16 to 21,

the receiving module is further configured to receive response information sent by each DU after the sending module sends the configuration information to each DU, where the response information sent by each DU is used to indicate that each DU completes the merging configuration of the at least one first cell.

24. A cell merging apparatus under a central unit CU-distributed unit DU architecture, wherein the apparatus corresponds to each DU of N DUs corresponding to at least one first cell, and the apparatus comprises:

a first receiving module, configured to receive configuration information sent by the CU, where the configuration information is used for combining configuration of the at least one first cell, the first cell is a cell meeting a combining condition, the first cell is determined based on cell qualities of multiple cells, and N is an integer greater than 0;

a processing module, configured to perform merging configuration on the at least one first cell according to the configuration information received by the first receiving module, so that the N DUs merge multiple first cells into one logical cell, where the logical cell has a first physical cell identifier, and the logical cell is a single frequency network SFN logical cell.

25. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein the configuration information corresponding to each DU includes a second physical cell identifier of each first cell in the at least one first cell and indication information of the logical cell, the indication information of the logical cell is used for indicating the first physical cell identifier, and the second physical cell identifier is used for indicating one first cell in the plurality of first cells that satisfies the combining condition before being combined into the logical cell, the apparatus further comprising:

a sending module, configured to send, to the CU, first information after the processing module performs merging configuration of the at least one first cell, where the first information includes an identifier of a target terminal located in the logical cell;

a second receiving module, configured to receive second information sent by the CU after the sending module sends the first information to the CU, where the second information is determined by the CU according to the first information, and the second information includes channel quality of the target terminal with respect to each of the at least one first cell;

a determining module, configured to determine, according to the second information received by the second receiving module, a serving cell providing a communication service for the target terminal, where the serving cell is at least one of the at least one first cell.

26. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the configuration information further includes a decision threshold, and wherein the decision threshold is determined by the CU according to cell qualities of the plurality of cells, and wherein the decision threshold is used by the target DU to determine a serving cell for the target terminal to provide communication service, and wherein the serving cell is at least one of the first cells corresponding to the target DU whose channel quality satisfies the decision threshold.

27. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the configuration information further includes a load threshold, and the load threshold is used for the target DU to determine a corresponding decision threshold according to a cell load of the logical cell.

28. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the configuration information further comprises a decision threshold or a loading threshold, and wherein the decision threshold and the loading threshold have a corresponding relationship,

the determining module is further configured to determine the serving cell providing the communication service for the target terminal according to the decision threshold; alternatively, the first and second electrodes may be,

the determining module is further configured to determine the decision threshold according to a relationship between the cell load of the logical cell and the load threshold, and the target DU determines the serving cell providing the communication service for the target terminal according to the decision threshold; the serving cell is at least one of the at least one first cell corresponding to the target DU whose channel quality satisfies the decision threshold.

29. The apparatus according to any of claims 25-28, wherein the plurality of first cells includes a primary cell and at least one secondary cell, and the indication information of the logical cell is indication information of the primary cell.

30. The apparatus of any one of claims 24-28,

a sending module, configured to send, after the processing module performs the merging configuration of the at least one first cell, response information to the CU, where the response information is used to indicate that the merging configuration of the at least one first cell is completed.

31. A network device comprising a memory, a processor and a program stored on the memory and executable on the processor, wherein the processor implements the method of any one of claims 1 to 8 when executing the program.

32. A network device comprising a memory, a processor and a program stored on the memory and executable on the processor, wherein the processor implements the method of any one of claims 9 to 15 when executing the program.

33. A computer-readable storage medium, which when executed on a computer device, causes the computer device to perform the method of any one of claims 1 to 8.

34. A computer readable storage medium, which when run on a computer device causes the computer device to perform the method of any one of claims 9 to 15.