CN112291050A

CN112291050A - Method and device for transmitting information

Info

Publication number: CN112291050A
Application number: CN202010995054.1A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 张旭; 薛丽霞
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2017-06-16
Filing date: 2017-06-16
Publication date: 2021-01-29
Also published as: CN109150460A; CN109150460B

Abstract

The application provides a method for transmitting information, which comprises the following steps: the terminal equipment determines a reference signal corresponding to each candidate control channel in a plurality of candidate control channels; the terminal equipment receives control information sent by the network equipment on a first candidate control channel according to a reference signal corresponding to the first candidate control channel at a first aggregation level in the multiple candidate control channels; the plurality of candidate control channels further include a second candidate control channel of a second aggregation level, the first aggregation level is different from the second aggregation level, the first candidate control channel at least includes a first Control Channel Element (CCE), the second candidate control channel at least includes a second Control Channel Element (CCE), the first CCE and the second CCE are numbered the same in the same control channel resource set, and the first CCE and the second CCE correspond to the same first reference signal, so that resource overhead can be reduced, and system performance can be improved.

Description

Method and device for transmitting information

Cross Reference to Related Applications

The present application, filed on 16.06.2017, chinese patent office, application No. 201710459703.4, entitled "method and apparatus for transmitting information," is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Technical Field

The embodiments of the present application relate to the field of communications, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for transmitting information in the field of communications.

Background

For example, in an Enhanced Physical Downlink Control Channel (EPDCCH), one candidate control channel in the EPDCCH may correspond to one or more reference signals, but candidate control channels at different aggregation levels form multiple candidate control channels, and multiple candidate control channels have many reference signals, which may cause a terminal device to have a large complexity when using the reference signals, resulting in a large resource overhead, and further cause a low system performance. For example, when the terminal device demodulates data using the reference signal, complexity of demodulating data may be increased, and when the terminal device performs channel estimation using the reference signal, complexity of channel estimation may be increased.

Disclosure of Invention

The application provides a method for transmitting information, which can reduce resource overhead and is beneficial to improving system performance.

In a first aspect, a method for transmitting information is provided, including: the terminal equipment determines a reference signal corresponding to each candidate control channel in a plurality of candidate control channels; the terminal equipment receives control information sent by the network equipment on a first candidate control channel according to a reference signal corresponding to the first candidate control channel at a first aggregation level in the multiple candidate control channels; wherein the plurality of candidate control channels further includes a second candidate control channel of a second aggregation level, the first candidate control channel includes at least a first Control Channel Element (CCE), the second candidate control channel includes at least a second CCE, the first CCE and the second CCE are numbered the same in the same control channel resource set, and the first CCE and the second CCE correspond to the same first reference signal.

In this embodiment, the terminal device may determine a reference signal for each candidate control channel in the plurality of candidate control channels, and since the first CCE corresponds to the same first reference signal as the second CCE, the terminal device may determine a reference signal corresponding to the first CCE of the first candidate control channel as the first reference signal, and determine a reference signal corresponding to the second CCE of the second candidate control channel as the first reference signal, so that the terminal device may demodulate control information on the first CCE and the second CCE by using the first reference signal, for example, the terminal device may perform channel estimation on the first CCE of the first candidate control channel by using the first reference signal to obtain a first estimation value, and determine the first estimation value as a second CCE channel estimation value of the second candidate control channel, so that channel estimation on the second CCE of the second candidate control channel may be avoided, the method can save the expenditure of resources, improve the utilization rate of the resources and further improve the system performance.

Optionally, the first aggregation level and the second aggregation level are determined or defined by a number of control channel elements, CCEs.

Optionally, the first aggregation level is different from the second aggregation level.

Optionally, the plurality of candidate control channels further includes a third candidate control channel and a fourth candidate control channel, the third candidate control channel includes a third CCE corresponding to a second reference signal, the fourth candidate control channel includes a fourth CCE corresponding to a third reference signal, and the second reference signal is different from the third reference signal.

Alternatively, the terminal device may transmit data using the control information.

Optionally, the plurality of candidate control channels include a plurality of aggregation levels of candidate control channels, a candidate control channel of an aggregation level is a partial candidate control channel of the plurality of candidate control channels, and if one aggregation level corresponds to one search space, the plurality of aggregation levels correspond to the plurality of search spaces.

Optionally, the plurality of search spaces may be a plurality of Common Search Spaces (CSSs), the plurality of search spaces may be a plurality of dedicated search spaces (USSs), and the plurality of search spaces may also include at least one CSS and at least one USS, which is not limited in this embodiment of the present application.

In certain implementations, the first candidate control channel includes a set of CCEs that is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel, and the first candidate control channel corresponds to the same first reference signal as all CCEs included in the second candidate control channel; the determining, by the terminal device, a reference signal corresponding to each candidate control channel in a plurality of candidate control channels includes: the terminal device determines the first reference signal as a reference signal for the first candidate control channel and the second candidate control channel.

In the embodiment of the present application, if the CCE set of one candidate control channel is a subset of the CCE set of another candidate control channel, the reference signals corresponding to the two candidate control channels are the same.

Optionally, the first candidate control channel comprises elements in a set of CCEs that are elements in a first set of control channel resources; the second candidate control channel comprises elements in a CCE set that are elements in a second set of control channel resources, and the first set of control channel resources and the second set of control channel resources are the same set of resources.

In certain implementations, the first candidate control channel includes a set of CCEs that is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel, the CCEs of the second candidate control channel other than the CCEs included in the first candidate control channel use a fourth reference signal, the first reference signal being different from the fourth reference signal; the determining, by the terminal device, a reference signal corresponding to each candidate control channel in a plurality of candidate control channels includes: the terminal device determines the first reference signal as a reference signal of the first candidate control channel; the terminal device determines the first reference signal and the fourth reference signal as reference signals of the second candidate control channel.

In the embodiment of the present application, if there are the same CCEs in the two candidate control channels, the CCEs in the same part correspond to the same reference signal, and the reference signals corresponding to the CCEs in different parts may be different.

In some implementations, the third candidate control channel and the fourth candidate control channel have the same aggregation level, an ith candidate control channel element included in the third candidate control channel and an ith candidate control channel element included in the fourth candidate control channel use different reference signals, i is an integer greater than or equal to 0 and smaller than n, and n is the number of candidate control channel elements included in the third candidate control channel or the fourth candidate control channel.

In the embodiment of the present application, the reference signals corresponding to the CCEs at the corresponding positions of different candidate control channels that may have the same aggregation level are different, so that the randomness of the reference signals may be improved, and interference caused by sampling the same reference signal at the corresponding CCE position with other terminal devices may be reduced, thereby improving the reliability of the system. In certain implementations, the third candidate control channel is lowest in aggregation level with the fourth candidate control channel.

In certain implementations, the third candidate control channel is aggregated with the fourth candidate control channel at a highest level.

In certain implementations, the first reference signal is a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) used to demodulate the first candidate control channel.

In certain implementations, the resources of the first reference signal, the resources of the second reference signal, the resources of the third reference signal, and the resources of the fourth reference signal include at least one of time-frequency resources, code word resources, and reference signal sequences.

In a second aspect, a method for transmitting information is provided, including: the network equipment sends control information to the terminal equipment on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in a plurality of candidate control channels; wherein the plurality of candidate control channels further includes a second candidate control channel of a second aggregation level, the first candidate control channel includes at least a first Control Channel Element (CCE), the second candidate control channel includes at least a second CCE, the first CCE and the second CCE are numbered the same in the same control channel resource set, and the first CCE and the second CCE correspond to the same first reference signal.

Optionally, the network device may transmit data with the terminal device according to the control information, for example, send downlink data according to the control information, or receive uplink data sent by the terminal device according to the control information.

Optionally, the plurality of candidate control channels includes candidate control channels of a plurality of aggregation levels, where one aggregation level corresponds to one search space, and then the plurality of aggregation levels correspond to a plurality of search spaces.

In certain implementations, the set of CCEs included in the first candidate control channel is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel, and the first candidate control channel corresponds to the same first reference signal as all CCEs included in the second candidate control channel.

In certain implementations, the set of CCEs included in the first candidate control channel is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel, CCEs of the second candidate control channel other than the CCEs included in the first candidate control channel use a fourth reference signal, and the first reference signal is different from the fourth reference signal.

In certain implementations, the third candidate control channel is lowest in aggregation level with the fourth candidate control channel.

In certain implementations, the first reference signal is a demodulation reference signal, DMRS, used to demodulate the first candidate control channel.

In certain implementations, the plurality of aggregation levels includes at least two of aggregation level 1, aggregation level 2, aggregation level 4, aggregation level 8, aggregation level 16, and aggregation level 32.

In a third aspect, a method for transmitting information is provided, including: the terminal equipment receives control information sent by the network equipment on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in a plurality of candidate control channels; wherein the plurality of candidate control channels further includes a second candidate control channel at a second aggregation level, the first candidate control channel includes a set of CCEs that is a subset of the set of CCEs included by the second candidate control channel, the first and second reference signals corresponding to the first candidate control channel are quasi co-located (QCL), the third and fourth reference signals corresponding to the second candidate control channel are QCL, and the QCL of the first candidate control channel is derived (derived) from the QCL of the second candidate control channel.

In this embodiment, the set of CCEs included in the first candidate control channel is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel, that is, the second aggregation level is greater than the first aggregation level, in other words, when the set of CCEs included in the first candidate control channel with a low aggregation level is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel with a high aggregation level, the QCL of the first candidate control channel is the same as the QCL of the second candidate control channel, the terminal device may perform channel estimation on the channel on the time-frequency resource where the first candidate control channel is located by using a second reference signal with a QCL hypothesis as the first reference signal corresponding to the first candidate control channel, so that, when the frequency-domain density of the first reference signal of the first candidate control channel is low, the second reference signal may assist the first candidate control channel in performing channel estimation, that is, QCL parameters corresponding to the first reference signal and the second reference signal are the same, so that the utilization rate of the reference signals can be improved, and the reliability of the system can be improved.

Optionally, the first aggregation level is less than the second aggregation level.

Optionally, after the terminal device receives the control information sent by the network device on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in the multiple candidate control channels, the method further includes: and the terminal equipment transmits data according to the control information.

Optionally, the QCL parameters corresponding to the first reference signal and the second reference signal are the same, and the QCL parameters corresponding to the third reference signal and the fourth reference signal are the same.

It should be understood that, in the embodiments of the present application, the following expressions indicate that control information on a first candidate control channel and control information on a second candidate control channel are both transmitted through the same beam (beam), that is, a reference signal on the first candidate control channel and a reference signal on the second candidate control channel are of type 3QCL, and the QCL of the first candidate control channel and the QCL of the second candidate control channel are the same; second, the QCL of the first candidate control channel is derived from the QCL of the second candidate control channel; third, the QCL of the first candidate control channel is determined by the QCL of the second candidate control channel.

Optionally, the plurality of search spaces may be a plurality of CSSs, the plurality of search spaces may be a plurality of USSs, and the plurality of search spaces may also include at least one CSS and at least one USS, which is not limited in this embodiment of the present application.

Optionally, the second reference signal and the fourth reference signal are downlink reference signals.

Optionally, the first reference signal and the third reference signal are the same or different.

Optionally, the QCL for the second candidate control channel may be protocol specified or network configured.

In some implementations, when the second reference signal is the same as the fourth reference signal, and the QCL of the first candidate control channel is derived from the QCL of the second candidate control channel, when the frequency-domain density of the first reference signal of the first candidate control channel is low, the second reference signal may be used to perform channel estimation on a channel on the time-frequency resource where the first candidate control channel is located, when the frequency-domain density of the third reference signal of the second candidate control channel is low, the fourth reference channel may be used to perform channel estimation on the second candidate control channel, and when the second reference signal is the same as the fourth reference signal, and the frequency-domain densities of the first reference signal and the third reference signal are low, the terminal device may use the second reference signal or the fourth reference signal to perform channel estimation on a channel on the time-frequency resource where the first candidate control channel and the second candidate control channel are located, this can improve the utilization ratio of the reference signal and can improve the reliability of the system.

In certain implementations, before the terminal device receives control information sent by the network device on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in the plurality of candidate control channels, the method further includes: the terminal device receives configuration information sent by a network device, wherein the configuration information is used for indicating the QCL of the second candidate control channel; the terminal equipment determines QCL of the second candidate control channel according to the configuration information; and the terminal equipment determines the QCL of the first candidate control channel according to the QCL of the second candidate control channel.

In some implementations, the second reference signal or the fourth reference signal is at least one of a broadcast channel reference signal, a phase tracking reference signal (PT-RS), a Tracking Reference Signal (TRS), a demodulation reference signal of a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), a Common Reference Signal (CRS), a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS), or a synchronization signal.

In a fourth aspect, a method of transmitting information is provided, including: the network equipment sends control information to the terminal equipment on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in a plurality of candidate control channels;

wherein the plurality of candidate control channels further includes a second candidate control channel at a second aggregation level, the first candidate control channel includes a set of CCEs that is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel, the first and second reference signals corresponding to the first candidate control channel are QCL's, the third and fourth reference signals corresponding to the second candidate control channel are QCL's, and the QCL of the first candidate control channel is derived from the QCL of the second candidate control channel.

In this embodiment, the set of CCEs included in the first candidate control channel is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel, that is, the second aggregation level is greater than the first aggregation level, in other words, when the set of CCEs included in the first candidate control channel with a low aggregation level is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel with a high aggregation level, the QCL of the first candidate control channel is the same as the QCL of the second candidate control channel, the terminal device may perform channel estimation on the first candidate control channel on the time-frequency resource where the first candidate control channel is located by using a second reference signal with a QCL hypothesis for the first reference signal corresponding to the first candidate control channel, so that, when the frequency-domain density of the first reference signal of the first candidate control channel is low, the second reference signal may assist the first candidate control channel in performing channel estimation, that is, QCL parameters corresponding to the first reference signal and the second reference signal are the same, so that the utilization rate of the reference signals can be improved, and the reliability of the system can be improved.

Optionally, before the network device sends control information to the terminal device on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in the plurality of candidate control channels, the method further includes: the network device determines the control information.

In certain implementations, the second reference signal is the same as the fourth reference signal.

In some implementations, the network device sends configuration information to the terminal device, where the configuration information is used to indicate the QCL of the second candidate control channel.

In certain implementations, the second reference signal or the fourth reference signal is at least one of a broadcast channel reference signal, a phase tracking reference signal PT-RS, a tracking reference signal T-RS, a demodulation reference signal of a PDSCH, a common reference signal CRS, a channel state information reference signal CSI-RS, or a synchronization signal.

In a fifth aspect, a method for transmitting information is provided, including: the terminal equipment determines a reference signal of each candidate control channel in a plurality of search spaces; the terminal equipment receives the control information sent by the network equipment on at least one control channel of the plurality of search spaces; the terminal equipment demodulates the control information according to the reference signal of the at least one control channel to obtain the demodulated control information; the terminal equipment transmits information with the network equipment according to the demodulated control information; the plurality of candidate control channels include a third candidate control channel and a fourth candidate control channel, the aggregation levels of the third candidate control channel and the fourth candidate control channel are the same, an ith candidate control channel unit included in the third candidate control channel and an ith candidate control channel unit included in the fourth candidate control channel correspond to different reference signals, i is an integer greater than or equal to 0 and smaller than n, and n is the number of candidate control channel units included in the third candidate control channel or the fourth candidate control channel.

Optionally, the plurality of search spaces corresponds to a plurality of aggregation levels, e.g. 3 search spaces correspond to 3 aggregation levels.

In the embodiment of the present application, the reference signals corresponding to the CCEs at the corresponding positions of different candidate control channels that may have the same aggregation level are different, so that the randomness of the reference signals may be improved, and interference caused by sampling the same reference signal at the corresponding CCE position with other terminal devices may be reduced, thereby improving the reliability of the system.

Optionally, the CCEs of the candidate control channels at the same aggregation level are mutually orthogonal

For example, the third candidate control channel and the fourth candidate control channel are candidate control channels with an aggregation level of 8, and if the third candidate control channel includes 8 CCEs placed in order, namely CCE0, CCE1, CCE2, CCE3, CCE4, CCE5, CCE6, CCE7, and the fourth candidate control channel includes 8 CCEs placed in order, namely CCE8, CCE9, CCE10, CCE11, CCE12, CCE13, CCE14, and CCE15, the CCE0 of the third candidate control channel is different from the reference signal corresponding to CCE7 of the fourth candidate control channel, or the CCE2 of the third candidate control channel is different from the reference signal corresponding to CCE10 of the fourth candidate control channel, or the CCE7 of the third candidate control channel is different from the reference signal corresponding to CCE15 of the fourth candidate control channel, that is the degree of randomization may be increased as long as at least one reference signal corresponding to 8 positions is different.

Specifically, the ith candidate control channel element included in the third candidate control channel corresponds to a fifth reference signal, the ith candidate control channel element included in the fourth candidate control channel corresponds to a sixth reference signal, the fifth reference signal is different from the sixth reference signal, the fifth reference signal and the sixth reference signal are DMRSs, or the fifth reference signal and the sixth reference signal are channel state information reference signals CSI-RS.

In a sixth aspect, a method of transmitting information is provided, comprising: the network equipment sends control information to the terminal equipment on at least one control channel in a plurality of search spaces; the network equipment transmits information with the terminal equipment according to the control information; the plurality of candidate control channels include a third candidate control channel and a fourth candidate control channel, the aggregation levels of the third candidate control channel and the fourth candidate control channel are the same, an ith candidate control channel unit included in the third candidate control channel and an ith candidate control channel unit included in the fourth candidate control channel correspond to different reference signals, i is an integer greater than or equal to 0 and smaller than n, and n is the number of candidate control channel units included in the third candidate control channel or the fourth candidate control channel.

In a seventh aspect, an apparatus for transmitting information is provided, configured to perform the method of the first aspect or any possible implementation manner of the first aspect. In particular, the apparatus comprises means for performing the method of the first aspect described above or any possible implementation manner of the first aspect.

In an eighth aspect, there is provided an apparatus for transmitting information, configured to perform the method of the second aspect or any possible implementation manner of the second aspect. In particular, the apparatus comprises means for performing the method of the second aspect described above or any possible implementation of the second aspect.

A ninth aspect provides a system for transmitting information, comprising the apparatus of the fifth aspect or any alternative implementation thereof and the apparatus of the sixth aspect or any alternative implementation thereof.

In a tenth aspect, there is provided an apparatus for transmitting information, configured to perform the method of the third aspect or any possible implementation manner of the third aspect. In particular, the apparatus comprises means for performing the method of the third aspect or any possible implementation manner of the third aspect.

In an eleventh aspect, there is provided an apparatus for transmitting information, configured to perform the method of the fourth aspect or any possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect. In particular, the apparatus comprises means for performing the method of the fourth aspect described above or any possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect.

In a twelfth aspect, there is provided a system for transmitting information, comprising the apparatus of the tenth aspect or any alternative implementation manner thereof and the apparatus of the eleventh aspect or any alternative implementation manner thereof.

In a thirteenth aspect, there is provided an apparatus for transmitting information, configured to perform the method of the fifth aspect or any possible implementation manner of the fifth aspect. In particular, the apparatus comprises means for performing the method of the fifth aspect or any possible implementation of the fifth aspect.

In a fourteenth aspect, an apparatus for transmitting information is provided, which is configured to perform the method of the sixth aspect or any possible implementation manner of the sixth aspect. In particular, the apparatus comprises means for performing the method of the sixth aspect or any possible implementation manner of the sixth aspect.

In a fifteenth aspect, there is provided a system for transmitting information, comprising the apparatus of the thirteenth aspect or any alternative implementation manner thereof and the apparatus of the fourteenth aspect or any alternative implementation manner thereof.

In a sixteenth aspect, there is provided an apparatus for transmitting information, the apparatus comprising: a transceiver, a memory, and a processor. Wherein the transceiver, the memory and the processor are in communication with each other via an internal connection path, the memory is configured to store instructions, the processor is configured to execute the instructions stored by the memory to control a receiver to receive signals and a transmitter to transmit signals, and when the instructions stored by the memory are executed by the processor, the execution causes the processor to perform the method of the first aspect or any possible implementation manner of the first aspect.

In a seventeenth aspect, an apparatus for transmitting information is provided, the apparatus comprising: a transceiver, a memory, and a processor. Wherein the transceiver, the memory and the processor are in communication with each other via an internal connection path, the memory is configured to store instructions, the processor is configured to execute the instructions stored by the memory to control the receiver to receive signals and control the transmitter to transmit signals, and when the processor executes the instructions stored by the memory, the execution causes the processor to execute the method of the second aspect or any possible implementation manner of the second aspect.

In an eighteenth aspect, there is provided an apparatus for transmitting information, the apparatus comprising: a transceiver, a memory, and a processor. Wherein the transceiver, the memory and the processor are in communication with each other via an internal connection path, the memory is configured to store instructions, the processor is configured to execute the instructions stored by the memory to control the receiver to receive signals and control the transmitter to transmit signals, and when the processor executes the instructions stored by the memory, the execution causes the processor to perform the method of the third aspect or any possible implementation manner of the third aspect.

In a nineteenth aspect, there is provided an apparatus for transmitting information, the apparatus comprising: a transceiver, a memory, and a processor. Wherein the transceiver, the memory and the processor are in communication with each other via an internal connection path, the memory is configured to store instructions, the processor is configured to execute the instructions stored by the memory to control the receiver to receive signals and control the transmitter to transmit signals, and when the instructions stored by the memory are executed by the processor, the execution causes the processor to perform the method of any one of the possible implementations of the fourth aspect or the fourth aspect.

In a twentieth aspect, there is provided an apparatus for transmitting information, the apparatus comprising: a transceiver, a memory, and a processor. Wherein the transceiver, the memory and the processor are in communication with each other via an internal connection path, the memory is configured to store instructions, the processor is configured to execute the instructions stored by the memory to control the receiver to receive signals and control the transmitter to transmit signals, and when the instructions stored by the memory are executed by the processor, the execution causes the processor to perform the method of the fifth aspect or any possible implementation manner of the fifth aspect.

In a twenty-first aspect, there is provided an apparatus for transmitting information, the apparatus comprising: a transceiver, a memory, and a processor. Wherein the transceiver, the memory, and the processor communicate with each other through an internal connection path, the memory is configured to store instructions, the processor is configured to execute the instructions stored by the memory to control the receiver to receive signals and control the transmitter to transmit signals, and when the processor executes the instructions stored by the memory, the execution causes the processor to perform the method of any one of the possible implementations of the sixth aspect or the sixth aspect.

In a twenty-second aspect, a computer-readable storage medium is provided, having stored therein instructions, which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform a method as in the first aspect or any possible implementation of the first aspect.

A twenty-third aspect provides a computer-readable storage medium having stored therein instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform a method as in the second aspect or any possible implementation of the second aspect.

A twenty-fourth aspect provides a computer-readable storage medium having stored therein instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform a method as in the third aspect or any possible implementation of the third aspect.

A twenty-fifth aspect provides a computer-readable storage medium having stored therein instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform a method as in the fourth aspect or any possible implementation of the fourth aspect.

A twenty-sixth aspect provides a computer-readable storage medium having stored therein instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform a method as in the fifth aspect or any possible implementation of the fifth aspect.

A twenty-seventh aspect provides a computer-readable storage medium having stored therein instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform a method as in the sixth aspect or any possible implementation of the sixth aspect.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a communication system applied to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 2 shows a schematic diagram of a candidate control channel according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 3 shows a schematic diagram of a method for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 4 shows a schematic diagram of another candidate control channel according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 5 shows a resource diagram of a reference signal according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 6 shows a resource diagram of a reference signal according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram illustrating another method for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 8 shows a schematic diagram of another candidate control channel according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 9 is a schematic diagram illustrating an apparatus for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 10 is a schematic diagram of another apparatus for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 11 is a schematic diagram of another apparatus for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 12 is a schematic diagram of another apparatus for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 13 is a schematic diagram of another apparatus for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 14 is a schematic diagram of another apparatus for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 15 is a schematic diagram of another apparatus for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 16 is a schematic diagram of another apparatus for transmitting information according to the embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

The technical solution in the present application will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

It should be understood that the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application may be applied to various communication systems, for example: a global system for mobile communications (GSM) system, a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) system, a Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) system, a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), a long term evolution (long term evolution, LTE) system, a LTE Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) system, a LTE Time Division Duplex (TDD) system, a universal mobile telecommunications system (universal mobile telecommunications system, UMTS), a Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) communication system, a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) or a future Generation wireless communication system (WLAN 5G), and the like.

Fig. 1 shows a communication system 100 to which an embodiment of the present application is applied. The communication system 100 may include a terminal device 110, where the terminal device 110 may refer to an access terminal, subscriber unit, subscriber station, mobile station, remote terminal, mobile device, user terminal, wireless communication device, user agent, or user equipment. An access terminal may be a cellular telephone, a cordless telephone, a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) phone, a Wireless Local Loop (WLL) station, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a handheld device having wireless communication capabilities, a computing device or other processing device connected to a wireless modem, a vehicle mounted device, a wearable device, a terminal in a 5G network, etc.

The network device 120 may be a network side device that performs wireless communication with the terminal device 110, for example, an access point of wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi), a base station of next generation communication, such as a gNB or a small station of 5G, a micro station, a Transmission Reception Point (TRP), a base station of 2G, 3G, and 4G, a relay station, an access point, a vehicle-mounted device, a wearable device, and the like.

It should be understood that there may be one or more terminal devices 110, and the embodiment of the present application is described by taking only one terminal device as an example.

The following explains the terms used in the examples of the present application:

the symbols include, but are not limited to, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) symbols, sparse code division Multiple Access (SCMA) symbols, filtered orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (F-OFDM) symbols, and non-orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) symbols, which may be determined according to actual situations and are not described herein again.

Subcarrier width, minimum granularity in the frequency domain. For example, in LTE, the subcarrier width of 1 subcarrier is 15 kHz; in 5G, the 1 subcarrier width may be 15kHz, 30kHz, or 60 kHz.

Physical Resource Block (PRB), P consecutive subcarriers occupied in the frequency domain, and Q consecutive OFDM symbols occupied in the time domain. Wherein P and Q are natural numbers greater than 1. For example, one physical resource block may occupy 12 consecutive subcarriers in the frequency domain, and may occupy 7 consecutive OFDM symbols in the time domain, where P is 12 and Q is 7; or P is 12 and Q is 14.

Resource Element Group (REG), P consecutive subcarriers occupied in the frequency domain, and Q consecutive OFDM symbols occupied in the time domain. Wherein P is a natural number greater than 1. For example, one resource element group may occupy 12 consecutive subcarriers in the frequency domain and 1 OFDM symbol in the time domain, where P is 12 and Q is 1.

Candidate Control Channel Elements (CCEs), where one candidate control channel element corresponds to multiple resource element groups, and the number of resource element groups corresponding to one candidate control channel element is fixed, for example, 4 or 6. One candidate control channel consists of one or more CCEs, and one CCE consists of one or more REGs.

The candidate control channel resource set includes time-frequency resources of at least one search space, e.g., an integer number of physical resource blocks in the frequency domain (which may be continuous or discrete in the frequency domain), and 1 or more OFDM symbols in the time domain, e.g., 1, or 2, or 3 OFDM symbols.

Aggregation level, the number of candidate control channel units included in a candidate control channel, that is, if the number of candidate control channel units included in the candidate control channel is L, where L is a positive integer greater than or equal to 1, the aggregation level of the candidate control channel is also referred to as L.

The search space, a set of one or more candidate control channels with the same aggregation level L, is called a search space, which may be denoted as s (L).

Before acquiring downlink control information, terminal equipment needs to acquire a reference signal corresponding to a downlink candidate control channel; the terminal device may demodulate the downlink candidate control channel by using the reference signal, and optionally, the terminal device may estimate a channel estimation value of a channel state on a time-frequency resource where the downlink candidate control channel is located by using the reference signal, and the terminal device may demodulate the downlink control information by using the channel estimation value; or the terminal device may perform tracking or measurement using the reference signal, and the like, and the embodiment of the present application does not limit the function of the reference signal at all.

In the prior art, for example, in EPDCCH of LTE system, reference signals are not mapped on resource units mapped by control information, that is, time-frequency resources occupied by control information and reference signals are not overlapped; however, the reference signal for demodulating the EPDCCH is only mapped on the PRB carrying the EPDCCH, that is, the reference signal is not mapped in the PRB not carrying the EPDCCH, so that resource overhead can be saved. For example, in EPDCCH, the correspondence between reference signals and candidate control channels is shown in fig. 2, where {107,108,109, 110} in fig. 2 represents the number of four antenna ports, one antenna port corresponds to one reference signal, and four antenna ports correspond to four reference signals. Fig. 2 totally includes 8 CCEs, namely CCE0, CCE1, CCE2, CCE3, CCE4, CCE5, CCE6, CCE7, CCE0, CCE1, CCE2 and CCE3, which form one PRB, CCE4, CCE5, CCE6 and CCE7, where for a candidate control channel with an aggregation level of 1, 8 CCEs respectively correspond to 8 candidate control channels, and reference signals of the 8 candidate control channels are 107,108,109,110,107,108,109,110 respectively; for the candidate control channels with the aggregation level of 2, 8 CCEs correspond to 4 candidate control channels, the CCE of the first candidate control channel is CCE0 and CCE1, the reference signal of the first candidate control channel is 107, the CCE of the second candidate control channel is CCE2 and CCE3, the reference signal of the second candidate control channel is 109, the CCE of the third candidate control channel is CCE4 and CCE5, the reference signal of the third candidate control channel is 107, the CCE of the fourth candidate control channel is CCE6 and CCE7, and the reference signal of the fourth candidate control channel is 109; for example, in fig. 2, the first candidate control channel and the second candidate control channel of aggregation level 1 are the same CCEs occupied by the first candidate control channel of aggregation level 2, which are both CCE0 and CCE1, but the reference signals of the first and second candidate control channels of aggregation level 1 are 107 and 108, the reference signal of the first candidate control channel of aggregation level 2 is 107, when the terminal device uses the reference signal to perform channel estimation, the terminal device needs to perform channel estimation on the first candidate control channel of aggregation level 1 using the reference signal 107, performs channel estimation on the second candidate control channel of aggregation level 1 using the reference signal 108, that is, the reference signals corresponding to the candidate control channels with overlapped resources are different, so that multiple channel estimation operations are required, which increases the complexity of channel estimation. In practical applications, the channel estimation values obtained by channels occupying the same time-frequency resources are the same. In this embodiment of the present application, it may be designed that the reference signals corresponding to the overlapping CCEs are the same, so that channel estimation values of the reference signals may be multiplexed, and complexity of channel estimation is reduced, for example, in fig. 2, the reference signal of the second candidate control channel at aggregation level 1 is also 107, so that the channel estimation value of the first candidate control channel at aggregation level 2 may be adopted when performing channel estimation for the first candidate control channel and the second candidate control channel at aggregation level 1, and resource overhead caused by this channel estimation may be avoided. Optionally, in this embodiment of the present application, all 8 CCEs in fig. 2 overlap with CCEs occupied by candidate control channels with an aggregation level of 8, a reference signal corresponding to a candidate control channel with an aggregation level of 8 is 107, and reference signals of all candidate control channels corresponding to fig. 2 may be set to 107.

Optionally, in this embodiment of the present application, the resource of the reference signal is at least one of a time-frequency resource, a reference signal sequence, and a codeword resource.

In this embodiment, the network device or the terminal device first needs to determine the time-frequency resources occupied by the candidate control channels included in each of the plurality of search spaces, and then the network device sends the control information on the time-frequency resources occupied by the candidate control channels, or the terminal device receives the control information on the time-frequency resources occupied by the candidate control channels. The following describes how a network device or a terminal device determines time-frequency resources occupied by candidate control channels included in each of a plurality of search spaces, where the time-frequency resources occupied by the candidate control channels are described in units of CCEs. Specifically, the determining, by the terminal device, the time-frequency resource occupied by the candidate control channel included in each of the plurality of search spaces may be according to a manner specified by the network device, or may be performed by the network device indicating, to the terminal device, the time-frequency resource occupied by the candidate control channel included in each of the plurality of search spaces.

Assuming that the number of CCEs included in the candidate control channel resource set is N, the CCE number is {0, 1, 2, 3, ·, N-1}, and for a candidate control channel with an aggregation level of 1, a CCE may be selected as a resource of the candidate control channel in the candidate control channel resource set according to a set rule, where the set rule may cause CCEs corresponding to different candidate control channels at the same aggregation level to be orthogonal, that is, time-frequency resources of different candidate control channels at the same aggregation level do not overlap. For the candidate control channels with the aggregation level of 2, each candidate control channel comprises 2 CCEs, and each candidate control channel comprises two consecutive CCEs in the candidate control channel set, wherein one CCE is numbered M, and M mod 2 is 0, and mod is a remainder operation. For candidate control channels with an aggregation level of 3, each candidate control channel comprises 3 CCEs, and each candidate control channel comprises three consecutive CCEs in the candidate control channel set, wherein one CCE is numbered N and satisfies N mod 3 ═ 0. And so on, according to the method described above, the CCE number of the candidate control channel included in each aggregation level may be determined.

Fig. 3 illustrates a method 200 for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application, where the method 200 may be applied to the communication system 100 illustrated in fig. 1, but the embodiment of the present application is not limited thereto.

S210, the terminal device determines a reference signal corresponding to each candidate control channel in the plurality of candidate control channels.

It should be understood that each candidate control channel may be composed of at least one CCE, and one CCE is composed of one or more REGs, where the time-frequency resource of at least one REG of the one or more REGs carries a reference signal, that is, one CCE corresponds to at least one reference signal, that is, one candidate control channel corresponds to at least one reference signal.

S220, the network equipment sends control information to the terminal equipment on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in a plurality of candidate control channels, and the terminal equipment receives the control information sent by the network equipment on the first candidate control channel according to a reference signal corresponding to the first candidate control channel; wherein the plurality of candidate control channels further includes a second candidate control channel of a second aggregation level, the first aggregation level and the second aggregation level are determined or defined by the number of Control Channel Elements (CCEs), the first aggregation level is different from the second aggregation level, the first candidate control channel includes at least a first Control Channel Element (CCE), the second candidate control channel includes at least a second Control Channel Element (CCE), the first CCE and the second CCE are numbered the same within the same control channel resource set, and the first CCE and the second CCE correspond to the same first reference signal, the plurality of candidate control channels further includes a third candidate control channel and a fourth candidate control channel, the third candidate control channel includes a third CCE corresponding to a second reference signal, and the fourth CCE included in the fourth candidate control channel corresponds to a third reference signal, the second reference signal is different from the third reference signal.

It should be understood that the second reference signal corresponding to the third CCE is different from the third reference signal corresponding to the fourth CCE, that is, the reference signals corresponding to the third control channel and the fourth control channel are different, in other words, if the plurality of control channels have the same CCE, the same reference signal corresponding to the same CCE is used, but at least one of the reference signals corresponding to candidate control channels without the same CCE is different, and the third candidate control channel and the fourth candidate control channel may be candidate control channels at the same aggregation level, or may be two candidate control channels with different aggregation levels and without the same CCE, which is not limited in the embodiment of the present application.

It should also be understood that a control channel resource set includes multiple CCEs, each CCE in the multiple CCEs has a unique number in the control channel resource set, that is, the number of a first CCE and a second CCE in the same control channel resource set is the same, which means that the first CCE and the second CCE are the same, optionally, two CCEs with the same CCE number are mapped to a REG, where the time-frequency resources where the REGs are located are also the same, that is, the time-frequency resources corresponding to the first CCE and the second CCE are the same, the time-frequency resource corresponding to one CCE may be one or multiple REGs, at least one REG in the one or multiple REGs corresponds to a reference signal, that is, the first CCE and the second CCE correspond to the same first reference signal, and the first reference signal may be one reference signal or multiple reference signals.

As an optional embodiment, the set of CCEs included in the first candidate control channel is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel, and all CCEs included in the first candidate control channel and the second candidate control channel correspond to the same first reference signal; wherein, S210 comprises; the terminal device determines the first reference signal as a reference signal for the first candidate control channel and the second candidate control channel. As an alternative embodiment, the set of CCEs comprised by the first candidate control channel is a subset of the set of CCEs comprised by the second candidate control channel, the CCEs of the second candidate control channel other than the CCEs comprised by the first candidate control channel use a fourth reference signal, the first reference signal is different from the fourth reference signal; wherein, S210 includes: the terminal device determines the first reference signal as a reference signal of the first candidate control channel; the terminal device determines the first reference signal and the fourth reference signal as reference signals of the second candidate control channel.

In particular, when the set of CCEs comprised by the first candidate control channel is a subset of the set of CCEs comprised by the second candidate control channel, a first candidate control channel representing a low aggregation level is nested in a second candidate control channel representing a high aggregation level, there are two ways of determining the reference signal for the second candidate control channel, the first way, the reference signal for the second candidate control channel with high aggregation level is derived from the reference signal for the first candidate control channel with low aggregation level, for example, that is, in fig. 2, the candidate control channels at aggregation level 1, the candidate control channels at aggregation level 2, and the candidate control channels at aggregation level 4 all overlap with the CCEs occupied by the candidate control channels at aggregation level 8, the reference signal corresponding to the candidate control channel at aggregation level 8 is 107, and the reference signals of all the candidate control channels corresponding to fig. 2 may be set to 107; in a second way, the same reference signal is used for the part of the second candidate control channel with a high aggregation level that overlaps with the first candidate control channel with a low aggregation level, the second candidate control channel with a high aggregation level further includes a CCE portion that does not overlap with the first candidate control channel with a low aggregation level, and a CCE that is different from the first candidate control channel.

As an optional embodiment, the aggregation levels of the third candidate control channel and the fourth candidate control channel are the same, an ith candidate control channel element included in the third candidate control channel and an ith candidate control channel element included in the fourth candidate control channel use different reference signals, i is an integer greater than or equal to 0 and smaller than n, and n is the number of candidate control channel elements included in the third candidate control channel or the fourth candidate control channel.

For example, in fig. 4, the third candidate control channel and the fourth candidate control channel are candidate control channels with an aggregation level of 8, assuming that the third candidate control channel includes 8 CCEs placed in order, CCE0, CCE1, CCE2, CCE3, CCE4, CCE5, CCE6, CCE7 and the fourth candidate control channel includes 8 CCEs placed in order, CCE8, CCE9, CCE10, CCE11, CCE12, CCE13, CCE14, CCE15, where n is equal to 0, if i is equal to 0, the 0 th CCE of the third candidate control channel, namely CCE0, is different from the 0 th CCE of the fourth candidate control channel, namely the reference signal corresponding to CCE7, or, if i is equal to 2, the 2 nd CCE of the third candidate control channel, namely CCE2, the 2 nd CCE of the fourth candidate control channel, namely CCE 3727, namely, the reference signal corresponding to i is equal to 467, or the third candidate control channel, namely, if i is equal to 467, the reference signal corresponding to the 7 th CCE of the fourth candidate control channel, namely CCE15, is different, that is, as long as the reference signal corresponding to at least one position is different in 8 positions, the degree of randomization can be increased.

Optionally, the third candidate control channel and the fourth candidate control channel have the lowest aggregation level. Optionally, the third candidate control channel and the fourth candidate control channel have the highest aggregation level.

As an alternative embodiment, the first reference signal is a demodulation reference signal, DMRS, used for demodulating the first candidate control channel.

As an optional embodiment, the resource of the first reference signal, the resource of the second reference signal, the resource of the third reference signal and the resource of the fourth reference signal comprise at least one of a time-frequency resource, a codeword resource and a reference signal sequence mapped by a reference signal. For example, when the resource of the above reference signal is a time-frequency resource, one CCE may include 6 REGs, at least one REG of the 6 REGs may have a reference signal mapped thereto, and one REG is composed of one OFDM symbol in a time domain and 12 subcarriers consecutive in a frequency domain, for example, as shown in fig. 5, one REG includes 12 REs, where 3 rd RE and 9 th RE have reference signal 1 mapped thereto, and 2 nd RE and 8 th RE have reference signal 2 mapped thereto, that is, one REG included in one CCE may have one or more reference signals mapped thereto, and at least one REG of the 6 REGs included in one CCE has a reference signal mapped thereto, that is, one CCE may correspond to one or more reference signals. When the above reference signal resource is a codeword resource, for example, as shown in fig. 6, sequences of reference signal 1 and reference signal 2 are mapped on 3 rd RE, 4 th RE, 9 th RE and 10 th RE, a codeword corresponding to reference signal 1 is {1, 1}, and a codeword corresponding to reference signal 2 is {1, -1}, so that reference signal 1 and reference signal 2 can be distinguished on the codeword resource. When the resource of the above reference signal is a reference signal sequence, the reference signal sequence may be a pseudo-random sequence, for example, the pseudo-random sequence r (m) may be generated according to formula (1).

Wherein the content of the first and second substances,

c(n)＝(x₁(n+N_C)+x₂(n+N_C))mod2

x₁(n+31)＝(x₁(n+3)+x₁(n))mod2

x₂(n+31)＝(x₂(n+3)+x₂(n+2)+x₂(n+1)+x₂(n))mod2

x₁(0)＝1,x₁(n)＝0,n＝1,2,...,30，

indicating the maximum number of PRBs in the downlink,

and N is_cIs a constant, for example, Nc 1600. c. C_initIs a configurable parameter (which may be obtained by one of higher layer signaling configuration, synchronization or broadcast signal configuration, or predefined, etc.), or may be derived from the identity of the terminal device.

As an optional embodiment, the plurality of aggregation levels includes at least two of aggregation level 1, aggregation level 2, aggregation level 4, aggregation level 8, aggregation level 16 and aggregation level 32, where aggregation level 1 indicates that one candidate control channel includes one CCE, aggregation level 2 indicates that one candidate control channel includes two CCEs, aggregation level 4 indicates that one candidate control channel includes 4 CCEs, aggregation level 8 indicates that one candidate control channel includes 8 CCEs, aggregation level 16 indicates that one candidate control channel includes 16 CCEs, and aggregation level 32 indicates that one candidate control channel includes 32 CCEs.

In the embodiment of the present application, the same CCE corresponds to the same reference signal, and the terminal device may demodulate control information on the CCE using the same reference signal, for example, the terminal device may perform channel estimation on a first CCE of a first candidate control channel using a first reference signal to obtain a first estimation value, and determine the first estimation value as a second CCE channel estimation value of a second candidate control channel, so that channel estimation performed on a second CCE of the second candidate control channel may be avoided, resource overhead may be saved, resource utilization rate may be improved, and system performance may be further improved.

Fig. 7 illustrates a method 300 for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application, where the method 300 may be applied to the communication system 100 illustrated in fig. 1, but the embodiment of the present application is not limited thereto.

S310, the network device sends control information to the terminal device on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in a plurality of candidate control channels; the terminal equipment receives control information sent by the network equipment on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in a plurality of candidate control channels; wherein the plurality of candidate control channels further includes a second candidate control channel of a second aggregation level, the first aggregation level and the second aggregation level are determined or defined by a number of Control Channel Elements (CCEs), the first aggregation level is smaller than the second aggregation level, the set of CCEs included in the first candidate control channel is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel, the first reference signal and the second reference signal corresponding to the first candidate control channel are QCL, the third reference signal and the fourth reference signal corresponding to the second candidate control channel are QCL, and the QCL of the first candidate control channel is derived from the QCL of the second candidate control channel.

Specifically, the set of CCEs included in the first candidate control channel is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel, that is, the second aggregation level is greater than the first aggregation level, in other words, when the set of CCEs included in the first candidate control channel with a low aggregation level is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel with a high aggregation level, the QCL of the first candidate control channel and the QCL of the second candidate control channel are the same, and the QCL is defined as shown in table 1, the terminal device may perform channel estimation on the channel on the time-frequency resource where the first candidate control channel is located by using a second reference signal where a QCL hypothesis exists for the first reference signal corresponding to the first candidate control channel, so that, when the frequency domain density of the first reference signal of the first candidate control channel is low, the second reference signal may assist the first candidate control channel in performing channel estimation, that is, QCL parameters corresponding to the first reference signal and the second reference signal are the same, so that the utilization rate of the reference signals can be improved, and the reliability of the system can be improved.

Optionally, the QCL is the same, which may also mean that the fourth reference signal is the same as the second reference signal, or the port number of the fourth reference signal is the same as the port number of the second reference signal, or the port number of the fourth reference signal and the resource of the second reference signal are QCL, or the resource of the fourth reference signal and the resource of the second reference signal are QCL.

It should be understood that in the embodiment of the present application, the two reference signals are QCLs, and the QCL parameters of the two reference signals are the same for the same candidate control channel, as shown in table 1, and include at least one of channel average gain (type 1), channel large-scale characteristic (type 2), i.e., { average delay, delay spread, doppler shift, doppler frequency spread }, or channel space parameter (type 3). For example, the aforementioned first control signal and the second control signal are QCLs of type 1, and the large-scale channel characteristics of the third control signal and the fourth control signal are the same.

The application scenarios of the different types of QCLs are shown in table 1.

It should be understood that, in the embodiments of the present application, the following expressions indicate that control information on a first candidate control channel and control information on a second candidate control channel are both transmitted through the same beam (beam), that is, a reference signal on the first candidate control channel and a reference signal on the second candidate control channel are of type 3QCL, and the QCL of the first candidate control channel and the QCL of the second candidate control channel are the same; second, the QCL of the first candidate control channel is derived from the QCL of the second candidate control channel; third, the QCL of the first candidate control channel is determined by the QCL of the second candidate control channel. For example, as shown in fig. 8, in the case of M beams, the M beams transmit control information on candidate control channels of 4 aggregation levels, the 4 aggregation levels are aggregation level 1, aggregation level 2, aggregation level 4 and aggregation level 8, CCEs of a first candidate control channel (assumed to be the aforementioned second candidate control channel) of aggregation level 8 include CCEs of a first control channel (assumed to be the aforementioned first candidate control channel) of aggregation level 1, that is, a CCE set included in the first candidate control channel of aggregation level 1 is a subset of a CCE set included in the first candidate control channel of aggregation level 8, and a QCL of the first candidate control channel is derived from a QCL of the second candidate control channel: the control information on the first candidate control channel of aggregation level 1 and the control information on the first candidate control channel of aggregation level 8 are transmitted through the same beam 0.

Specifically, the foregoing QCL may be at least one of the three QCL types in table 1, but the embodiment of the present application is not limited thereto, and may also be another QCL type.

TABLE 1

It should be understood that the first reference signal in the method 200 and the first reference signal in the method 300 may be different reference signals, the second reference signal in the method 200 and the second reference signal in the method 300 may be different reference signals, the third reference signal in the method 200 and the third reference signal in the method 300 may be different reference signals, and the fourth reference signal in the method 200 and the fourth reference signal in the method 300 may be different reference signals, which is not limited in any way by the embodiment of the present application.

The method for transmitting information according to the embodiment of the present application is described in detail above with reference to fig. 1 to 8, and the apparatus for transmitting information according to the embodiment of the present application is described in detail below with reference to fig. 9 to 16.

Fig. 9 shows an apparatus 400 for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application, where the apparatus 400 includes:

a determining unit 410, configured to determine a reference signal corresponding to each candidate control channel in a plurality of candidate control channels;

a transceiving unit 420, configured to receive, on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in the multiple candidate control channels, control information sent by a network device according to a reference signal corresponding to the first candidate control channel;

wherein the plurality of candidate control channels further includes a second candidate control channel of a second aggregation level, the first aggregation level and the second aggregation level are determined or defined by the number of Control Channel Elements (CCEs), the first aggregation level is different from the second aggregation level, the first candidate control channel includes at least a first Control Channel Element (CCE), the second candidate control channel includes at least a second Control Channel Element (CCE), the first CCE and the second CCE are numbered the same within the same control channel resource set, and the first CCE and the second CCE correspond to the same first reference signal, the plurality of candidate control channels further includes a third candidate control channel and a fourth candidate control channel, the third candidate control channel includes a third CCE corresponding to a second reference signal, and the fourth CCE included in the fourth candidate control channel corresponds to a third reference signal, the second reference signal is different from the third reference signal.

As an optional embodiment, the set of CCEs included in the first candidate control channel is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel, and all CCEs included in the first candidate control channel and the second candidate control channel correspond to the same first reference signal;

the determining unit 410 is specifically configured to: determining the first reference signal as a reference signal for the first candidate control channel and the second candidate control channel.

As an alternative embodiment, the set of CCEs comprised by the first candidate control channel is a subset of the set of CCEs comprised by the second candidate control channel, the CCEs of the second candidate control channel other than the CCEs comprised by the first candidate control channel use a fourth reference signal, the first reference signal is different from the fourth reference signal;

the determining unit 410 is further specifically configured to:

determining the first reference signal as a reference signal for the first candidate control channel;

determining the first reference signal and the fourth reference signal as reference signals for the second candidate control channel.

As an optional embodiment, the resource of the first reference signal, the resource of the second reference signal, the resource of the third reference signal, and the resource of the fourth reference signal include at least one of a time-frequency resource, a code word resource, and a reference signal sequence.

It should be appreciated that the apparatus 400 herein is embodied in the form of a functional unit. The term "unit" herein may refer to an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (e.g., a shared, dedicated, or group processor) and memory that execute one or more software or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable components that support the described functionality. In an optional example, it may be understood by those skilled in the art that the apparatus 400 may be embodied as the terminal device in the foregoing method 200 embodiment, and the apparatus 400 may be configured to execute each procedure and/or step corresponding to the terminal device in the foregoing method 200 embodiment, and for avoiding repetition, details are not described here again.

Fig. 10 shows an apparatus 500 for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application, where the apparatus 500 includes:

a transceiving unit 510, configured to transmit control information to a terminal device on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in a plurality of candidate control channels;

Optionally, the apparatus 500 further comprises: a determining unit 520, configured to determine the control information before sending the control information to the terminal device on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in the plurality of candidate control channels.

As an optional embodiment, the set of CCEs included in the first candidate control channel is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel, and the first candidate control channel corresponds to the same first reference signal as all CCEs included in the second candidate control channel.

As an alternative embodiment, the set of CCEs comprised by the first candidate control channel is a subset of the set of CCEs comprised by the second candidate control channel, and the CCEs of the second candidate control channel other than the CCEs comprised by the first candidate control channel use a fourth reference signal, and the first reference signal is different from the fourth reference signal.

It should be appreciated that the apparatus 500 herein is embodied in the form of a functional unit. The term "unit" herein may refer to an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (e.g., a shared, dedicated, or group processor) and memory that execute one or more software or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable components that support the described functionality. In an optional example, it may be understood by those skilled in the art that the apparatus 500 may be embodied as a network device in the foregoing method 200 embodiment, and the apparatus 500 may be configured to perform each procedure and/or step corresponding to the network device in the foregoing method 200 embodiment, which is not described herein again to avoid repetition.

Fig. 11 shows an apparatus 600 for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application, where the apparatus 600 includes:

a transceiving unit 610, configured to receive control information sent by a network device on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in a plurality of candidate control channels;

wherein the plurality of candidate control channels further includes a second candidate control channel of a second aggregation level, the first and second aggregation levels are determined or defined by a number of Control Channel Elements (CCEs), the first aggregation level is smaller than the second aggregation level, the set of CCEs included in the first candidate control channel is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel, the first and second reference signals corresponding to the first candidate control channel are QCL's, the third and fourth reference signals corresponding to the second candidate control channel are quasi-co-located QCL's, and the QCL of the first candidate control channel is derived from the QCL of the second candidate control channel.

As an alternative embodiment, the transceiver unit 610 is further configured to:

receiving configuration information sent by a network device before receiving control information sent by the network device on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in the plurality of candidate control channels, wherein the configuration information is used for indicating a QCL of the second candidate control channel;

the apparatus 600 further comprises:

a determining unit 620, configured to determine the QCL of the second candidate control channel according to the configuration information, and determine the QCL of the first candidate control channel according to the QCL of the second candidate control channel.

As an alternative embodiment, the second reference signal is the same as the fourth reference signal.

As an optional embodiment, the second reference signal or the fourth reference signal is at least one of a broadcast channel reference signal, a phase tracking reference signal PT-RS, a tracking reference signal T-RS, a demodulation reference signal of a PDSCH (physical downlink shared channel), a common reference signal CRS, a CSI-RS, or a synchronization signal.

It should be appreciated that the apparatus 600 herein is embodied in the form of a functional unit. The term "unit" herein may refer to an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (e.g., a shared, dedicated, or group processor) and memory that execute one or more software or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable components that support the described functionality. In an optional example, as can be understood by those skilled in the art, the apparatus 600 may be embodied as the terminal device in the foregoing method 300 embodiment, and the apparatus 600 may be configured to execute each procedure and/or step corresponding to the terminal device in the foregoing method 300 embodiment, which is not described herein again to avoid repetition.

Fig. 12 shows an apparatus 700 for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application, where the apparatus 700 includes:

a transceiving unit 710, configured to send control information to a terminal device on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in a plurality of candidate control channels;

Optionally, the apparatus 700 further comprises: a determining unit 720, configured to determine the control information before sending the control information to the terminal device on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in the plurality of candidate control channels.

As an optional embodiment, the transceiver unit 710 is further configured to:

and sending configuration information to the terminal equipment, wherein the configuration information is used for indicating the QCL of the second candidate control channel.

As an optional embodiment, the second reference signal or the fourth reference signal is at least one of a broadcast channel reference signal, a phase tracking reference signal PT-RS, a tracking reference signal T-RS, a demodulation reference signal of PDSCH, a common reference signal CRS, a channel state information reference signal CSI-RS, or a synchronization signal.

It should be appreciated that the apparatus 700 herein is embodied in the form of a functional unit. The term "unit" herein may refer to an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (e.g., a shared, dedicated, or group processor) and memory that execute one or more software or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable components that support the described functionality. In an optional example, it may be understood by those skilled in the art that the apparatus 700 may be embodied as a network device in the foregoing method 300 embodiment, and the apparatus 700 may be configured to perform each procedure and/or step corresponding to the network device in the foregoing method 300 embodiment, which is not described herein again to avoid repetition.

Any one of the apparatus 400, the apparatus 500, the apparatus 600, and the apparatus 700 described above is fully corresponding to the network device or the terminal device in the method embodiment, and the corresponding unit executes the corresponding steps, for example, the transceiving unit performs the transceiving steps in the method embodiment, and other steps except transceiving may be executed by the processing module. The functions of the specific modules can be referred to corresponding method embodiments, and are not described in detail.

The network equipment and the terminal equipment of each scheme have the functions of realizing corresponding steps executed by the network equipment and the terminal equipment in the method; the functions can be realized by hardware, and the functions can also be realized by executing corresponding software by hardware. The hardware or software comprises one or more modules corresponding to the functions; for example, the transmitting unit may be replaced by a transmitter, the receiving unit may be replaced by a receiver, other units, such as the determining unit, may be replaced by a processor, and the transceiving operation and the related processing operation in the respective method embodiments are respectively performed.

Fig. 13 illustrates a further apparatus 800 for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application. The apparatus 800 includes a processor 810, a transceiver 820, and a memory 830. Wherein the processor 810, the transceiver 820 and the memory 830 are in communication with each other via an internal connection path, the memory 830 is configured to store instructions, and the processor 810 is configured to execute the instructions stored in the memory 830 to control the transceiver 820 to transmit and/or receive signals.

Wherein, the processor 810 is configured to determine a reference signal corresponding to each candidate control channel in the plurality of candidate control channels; the transceiver 820 is configured to receive control information sent by a network device on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in the plurality of candidate control channels according to a reference signal corresponding to the first candidate control channel; the plurality of candidate control channels further comprises a second candidate control channel of a second aggregation level, the first and second aggregation levels being determined or defined by a number of control channel elements, CCEs, the first aggregation level is different from the second aggregation level, the first candidate control channel comprises at least a first Control Channel Element (CCE), the second candidate control channel comprises at least a second CCE, the first CCE and the second CCE are numbered the same in the same control channel resource set, and the first CCE corresponds to the same first reference signal as the second CCE, the plurality of candidate control channels further including a third candidate control channel and a fourth candidate control channel, the third candidate control channel includes a third CCE corresponding to a second reference signal, the fourth candidate control channel includes a fourth CCE corresponding to a third reference signal, and the second reference signal is different from the third reference signal.

It should be understood that the apparatus 800 may be embodied as the terminal device in the foregoing method 200 embodiment, and may be configured to execute each step and/or flow corresponding to the terminal device in the foregoing method 200 embodiment. Alternatively, the memory 830 may include both read-only memory and random access memory and provides instructions and data to the processor. The portion of memory may also include non-volatile random access memory. For example, the memory may also store device type information. The processor 810 may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory, and when the processor 810 executes the instructions stored in the memory, the processor 810 is configured to perform the steps and/or processes of the embodiment of the method 200 corresponding to the terminal device.

Fig. 14 illustrates a further apparatus 900 for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application. The apparatus 900 includes a processor 910, a transceiver 920, and a memory 930. Wherein, the processor 910, the transceiver 920 and the memory 930 are in communication with each other through an internal connection path, the memory 930 is used for storing instructions, and the processor 910 is used for executing the instructions stored in the memory 930 to control the transceiver 920 to transmit and/or receive signals.

Wherein the transceiver 920 is configured to transmit control information to the terminal device on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in the plurality of candidate control channels; the plurality of candidate control channels further comprises a second candidate control channel of a second aggregation level, the first and second aggregation levels being determined or defined by a number of control channel elements, CCEs, the first aggregation level is different from the second aggregation level, the first candidate control channel comprises at least a first Control Channel Element (CCE), the second candidate control channel comprises at least a second CCE, the first CCE and the second CCE are numbered the same in the same control channel resource set, and the first CCE corresponds to the same first reference signal as the second CCE, the plurality of candidate control channels further including a third candidate control channel and a fourth candidate control channel, the third candidate control channel includes a third CCE corresponding to a second reference signal, the fourth candidate control channel includes a fourth CCE corresponding to a third reference signal, and the second reference signal is different from the third reference signal.

It should be understood that the apparatus 900 may be embodied as a network device in the foregoing method 200 embodiment, and may be configured to perform each step and/or flow corresponding to the network device in the foregoing method 200 embodiment. Alternatively, the memory 630 may include both read-only memory and random access memory, and provides instructions and data to the processor. The portion of memory may also include non-volatile random access memory. For example, the memory may also store device type information. The processor 610 may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory, and when the processor 910 executes the instructions stored in the memory, the processor 910 is configured to perform the various steps and/or processes of the embodiment of the method 200 corresponding to the network device described above.

Fig. 15 shows a further apparatus 1000 for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application. The apparatus 1000 includes a processor 1010, a transceiver 1020, and a memory 1030. Wherein the processor 1010, the transceiver 1020 and the memory 1030 are in communication with each other via an internal connection path, the memory 1030 is configured to store instructions, and the processor 1010 is configured to execute the instructions stored in the memory 1030 to control the transceiver 1020 to transmit and/or receive signals.

Wherein the transceiver 1020 is configured to receive control information transmitted by the network device on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in the plurality of candidate control channels; the plurality of candidate control channels further includes a second candidate control channel of a second aggregation level, the first aggregation level and the second aggregation level are determined or defined by a number of Control Channel Elements (CCEs), the first aggregation level is smaller than the second aggregation level, the set of CCEs included in the first candidate control channel is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel, the first reference signal and the second reference signal corresponding to the first candidate control channel are QCL's, the third reference signal and the fourth reference signal corresponding to the second candidate control channel are quasi-co-located QCL's, and the QCL of the first candidate control channel is derived from the QCL of the second candidate control channel.

It should be understood that the apparatus 1000 may be embodied as the terminal device in the foregoing method 300 embodiment, and may be configured to execute each step and/or flow corresponding to the terminal device in the foregoing method 300 embodiment. Alternatively, the memory 1030 may include a read-only memory and a random access memory, and provides instructions and data to the processor. The portion of memory may also include non-volatile random access memory. For example, the memory may also store device type information. The processor 1010 may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory, and when the processor 810 executes the instructions stored in the memory, the processor 1010 is configured to perform the steps and/or processes of the embodiment of the method 300 corresponding to the terminal device.

Fig. 16 shows another apparatus 1100 for transmitting information according to an embodiment of the present application. The apparatus 1100 includes a processor 1110, a transceiver 1120, and a memory 1130. The processor 1110, the transceiver 1120 and the memory 1130 are in communication with each other through an internal connection path, the memory 1130 is used for storing instructions, and the processor 1110 is used for executing the instructions stored in the memory 1130 to control the transceiver 1120 to transmit and/or receive signals.

Wherein the transceiver 1120 is configured to transmit control information to the terminal device on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level of the plurality of candidate control channels; the plurality of candidate control channels further includes a second candidate control channel of a second aggregation level, the first aggregation level and the second aggregation level are determined or defined by a number of Control Channel Elements (CCEs), the first aggregation level is smaller than the second aggregation level, the set of CCEs included in the first candidate control channel is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel, the first reference signal and the second reference signal corresponding to the first candidate control channel are QCL's, the third reference signal and the fourth reference signal corresponding to the second candidate control channel are quasi-co-located QCL's, and the QCL of the first candidate control channel is derived from the QCL of the second candidate control channel.

It is to be understood that the apparatus 1100 may be embodied as a network device in the foregoing method 300 embodiment, and may be configured to perform each step and/or flow corresponding to the network device in the foregoing method 300 embodiment. Alternatively, the memory 1130 may include both read-only memory and random access memory, and provides instructions and data to the processor. The portion of memory may also include non-volatile random access memory. For example, the memory may also store device type information. The processor 1110 can be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory, and when the processor 1110 executes the instructions stored in the memory, the processor 1110 is configured to perform the various steps and/or processes of the embodiment of the method 300 corresponding to the network device described above.

It should be understood that the transceivers described above may include both transmitters and receivers. The transceiver may further include an antenna, and the number of antennas may be one or more. The memory may be a separate device or may be integrated into the processor. The above-mentioned devices or parts of the devices may be implemented by being integrated into a chip, such as a baseband chip.

It should also be understood that, in the embodiment of the present application, the processor of the above apparatus may be a Central Processing Unit (CPU), and the processor may also be other general processors, Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) or other programmable logic devices, discrete gate or transistor logic devices, discrete hardware components, and the like. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like.

In implementation, the steps of the above method may be performed by integrated logic circuits of hardware in a processor or instructions in the form of software. The steps of a method disclosed in connection with the embodiments of the present application may be directly implemented by a hardware processor, or may be implemented by a combination of hardware and software elements in a processor. The software elements may be located in ram, flash, rom, prom, or eprom, registers, among other storage media that are well known in the art. The storage medium is located in a memory, and a processor executes instructions in the memory, in combination with hardware thereof, to perform the steps of the above-described method. To avoid repetition, it is not described in detail here.

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 or transmitted from a computer-readable storage medium to another computer-readable storage medium, e.g., from one website, computer, server, or data center to another website, computer, server, or data center via wire (e.g., coaxial cable, fiber optic, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), or wireless (e.g., infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.) Or a semiconductor medium (e.g., a Solid State Disk (SSD)), etc.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the various illustrative elements and algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as electronic hardware or combinations of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the implementation. 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.

It is clear to those skilled in the art that, for convenience and brevity of description, the specific working processes of the above-described systems, apparatuses and units may refer to the corresponding processes in the foregoing method embodiments, and are not described herein again.

In the several embodiments provided in the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed system, apparatus and method may be implemented in other ways. For example, the above-described apparatus embodiments are merely illustrative, and for example, the division of the units is only one logical division, and other divisions may be realized in practice, for example, a plurality of units or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted, or not executed. In addition, the shown or discussed mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection may be an indirect coupling or communication connection through some interfaces, devices or units, and may be in an electrical, mechanical or other form.

The units described as separate parts may or may not be physically separate, and parts displayed as units may or may not be physical units, may be located in one place, or may be distributed on a plurality of network units. Some or all of the units can be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of the embodiment.

In addition, functional units in the embodiments of the present application may be integrated into one processing unit, or each unit may exist alone physically, or two or more units are integrated into one unit.

The functions, if implemented in the form of software functional units and sold or used as a stand-alone product, may be stored in a computer readable storage medium. Based on such understanding, the technical solution of the present application or portions thereof that substantially contribute to the prior art may be embodied in the form of a software product stored in a storage medium and including instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device) to execute all or part of the steps of the method according to the embodiments of the present application. And the aforementioned storage medium includes: various media capable of storing program codes, such as a usb disk, a removable hard disk, a read-only memory (ROM), a Random Access Memory (RAM), a magnetic disk, or an optical disk.

The above description is only for the specific embodiments of the present application, but the scope of the present application is not limited thereto, and any person skilled in the art can easily conceive of the changes or substitutions within the technical scope of the present application, and shall be covered by the scope of the present application. Therefore, the protection scope of the present application shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A method of transmitting information, the method comprising:

the terminal equipment determines a reference signal corresponding to each candidate control channel in a plurality of candidate control channels;

the terminal equipment receives control information sent by the network equipment on a first candidate control channel according to a reference signal corresponding to the first candidate control channel at a first aggregation level in the multiple candidate control channels;

the terminal equipment receives control information sent by the network equipment on a second candidate control channel of a second aggregation level in the candidate control channels according to the reference signal corresponding to the first candidate control channel;

wherein the plurality of candidate control channels further include a second candidate control channel of the second aggregation level, the first aggregation level and the second aggregation level are determined or defined by the number of Control Channel Elements (CCEs), the first aggregation level is different from the second aggregation level, the first candidate control channel includes at least a first Control Channel Element (CCE), the second candidate control channel includes at least a second Control Channel Element (CCE), the first CCE and the second CCE are numbered the same in the same control channel resource set, and the first CCE and the second CCE correspond to the same first reference signal.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first candidate control channel comprises a set of CCEs that is a subset of the set of CCEs comprised by the second candidate control channel, and wherein the first candidate control channel corresponds to the same first reference signal as all CCEs comprised by the second candidate control channel;

the determining, by the terminal device, a reference signal corresponding to each candidate control channel in a plurality of candidate control channels includes:

the terminal device determines the first reference signal as a reference signal for the first candidate control channel and the second candidate control channel.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first candidate control channel comprises a set of CCEs that is a subset of a set of CCEs comprised by the second candidate control channel, wherein CCEs of the second candidate control channel other than the CCEs comprised by the first candidate control channel use a fourth reference signal, and wherein the first reference signal is different from the fourth reference signal;

the terminal device determines the first reference signal as a reference signal of the first candidate control channel;

the terminal device determines the first reference signal and the fourth reference signal as reference signals of the second candidate control channel.

4. The method of any of claims 1-3, wherein the plurality of candidate control channels further comprises a third candidate control channel and a fourth candidate control channel, the third candidate control channel contains a third CCE for a second reference signal, the fourth candidate control channel contains a fourth CCE for a third reference signal, the second reference signal is different from the third reference signal, the third candidate control channel is of the same aggregation level as the fourth candidate control channel, the ith candidate control channel unit included in the third candidate control channel and the ith candidate control channel unit included in the fourth candidate control channel use different reference signals, i is an integer greater than or equal to 0 and smaller than n, and n is the number of candidate control channel units included in the third candidate control channel or the fourth candidate control channel.

5. The method of any of claims 1-3, wherein the resources of the first reference signal, the resources of the second reference signal, the resources of the third reference signal, and the resources of the fourth reference signal comprise at least one of time-frequency resources, code word resources, and reference signal sequences.

6. A method of transmitting information, the method comprising:

the network equipment sends control information to the terminal equipment on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in a plurality of candidate control channels;

the network device sends control information to the terminal device on a second candidate control channel of a second aggregation level in the plurality of candidate control channels;

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the first candidate control channel comprises a set of CCEs that is a subset of the set of CCEs comprised by the second candidate control channel, and wherein the first candidate control channel corresponds to the same first reference signal as all CCEs comprised by the second candidate control channel.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the first candidate control channel comprises a set of CCEs that is a subset of a set of CCEs comprised by the second candidate control channel, wherein CCEs of the second candidate control channel other than the CCEs comprised by the first candidate control channel use a fourth reference signal, and wherein the first reference signal is different from the fourth reference signal.

9. The method of any of claims 6 to 8, wherein the plurality of candidate control channels further comprises a third candidate control channel and a fourth candidate control channel, the third candidate control channel contains a third CCE for a second reference signal, the fourth candidate control channel contains a fourth CCE for a third reference signal, the second reference signal is different from the third reference signal, the third candidate control channel is of the same aggregation level as the fourth candidate control channel, the ith candidate control channel unit included in the third candidate control channel and the ith candidate control channel unit included in the fourth candidate control channel use different reference signals, i is an integer greater than or equal to 0 and smaller than n, and n is the number of candidate control channel units included in the third candidate control channel or the fourth candidate control channel.

10. The method of any of claims 6 to 8, wherein the resources of the first reference signal, the resources of the second reference signal, the resources of the third reference signal, and the resources of the fourth reference signal comprise at least one of time-frequency resources, code word resources, and reference signal sequences.

11. A method of transmitting information, the method comprising:

the terminal equipment receives control information sent by the network equipment on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in a plurality of candidate control channels;

wherein the plurality of candidate control channels further includes a second candidate control channel of a second aggregation level, the first aggregation level and the second aggregation level are determined or defined by a number of Control Channel Elements (CCEs), the first candidate control channel includes a set of CCEs that is a subset of a set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel, the first reference signal and the second reference signal corresponding to the first candidate control channel are QCL's, the third reference signal and the fourth reference signal corresponding to the second candidate control channel are quasi co-located QCL's, and the QCL of the first candidate control channel is derived from the QCL of the second candidate control channel.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein before the terminal device receives the control information sent by the network device on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in the plurality of candidate control channels, the method further comprises:

the terminal device receives configuration information sent by a network device, wherein the configuration information is used for indicating the QCL of the second candidate control channel;

the terminal equipment determines QCL of the second candidate control channel according to the configuration information;

and the terminal equipment determines the QCL of the first candidate control channel according to the QCL of the second candidate control channel.

13. The method of claim 11 or 12, wherein the second reference signal or the fourth reference signal is at least one of a broadcast channel reference signal, a phase tracking reference signal (PT-RS), a tracking reference signal (T-RS), a demodulation reference signal of a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), a Common Reference Signal (CRS), a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS), or a synchronization signal.

14. A method of transmitting information, the method comprising:

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

and the network equipment sends configuration information to the terminal equipment, wherein the configuration information is used for indicating the QCL of the second candidate control channel.

16. The method of claim 14 or 15, wherein the second reference signal or the fourth reference signal is at least one of a broadcast channel reference signal, a phase tracking reference signal (PT-RS), a tracking reference signal (T-RS), a demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) of a PDSCH, a Common Reference Signal (CRS), a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) or a synchronization signal.

17. An apparatus for transmitting information, the apparatus comprising:

a determining unit, configured to determine a reference signal corresponding to each candidate control channel in a plurality of candidate control channels;

a transceiving unit, configured to receive, on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in the plurality of candidate control channels, control information sent by a network device according to a reference signal corresponding to the first candidate control channel;

the transceiver unit is further configured to receive, according to a reference signal corresponding to the first candidate control channel, control information sent by the network device on a second candidate control channel of a second aggregation level in the multiple candidate control channels;

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the first candidate control channel comprises a set of CCEs that is a subset of the set of CCEs comprised by the second candidate control channel, and wherein the first candidate control channel corresponds to the same first reference signal as all CCEs comprised by the second candidate control channel;

the determining unit is specifically configured to: determining the first reference signal as a reference signal for the first candidate control channel and the second candidate control channel.

19. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the first candidate control channel comprises a set of CCEs that is a subset of a set of CCEs comprised by the second candidate control channel, wherein CCEs of the second candidate control channel other than the CCEs comprised by the first candidate control channel use a fourth reference signal, and wherein the first reference signal is different from the fourth reference signal;

the determining unit is further specifically configured to:

20. The apparatus according to any of claims 17-19, wherein the plurality of candidate control channels further comprises a third candidate control channel and a fourth candidate control channel, the third candidate control channel contains a third CCE for a second reference signal, the fourth candidate control channel contains a fourth CCE for a third reference signal, the second reference signal is different from the third reference signal, the third candidate control channel is of the same aggregation level as the fourth candidate control channel, the ith candidate control channel unit included in the third candidate control channel and the ith candidate control channel unit included in the fourth candidate control channel use different reference signals, i is an integer greater than or equal to 0 and smaller than n, and n is the number of candidate control channel units included in the third candidate control channel or the fourth candidate control channel.

21. An apparatus for transmitting information, the apparatus comprising:

a transceiving unit configured to transmit control information to a terminal device on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level among a plurality of candidate control channels;

the transceiver unit is further configured to send control information to the terminal device on a second candidate control channel of a second aggregation level of the plurality of candidate control channels;

22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the set of CCEs included in the first candidate control channel is a subset of the set of CCEs included in the second candidate control channel, and wherein the first candidate control channel corresponds to the same first reference signal as all CCEs included in the second candidate control channel.

23. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the first candidate control channel comprises a set of CCEs that is a subset of a set of CCEs comprised by the second candidate control channel, wherein CCEs of the second candidate control channel other than the CCEs comprised by the first candidate control channel use a fourth reference signal, and wherein the first reference signal is different from the fourth reference signal.

24. The apparatus according to any of claims 21 to 23, wherein the plurality of candidate control channels further comprises a third candidate control channel and a fourth candidate control channel, the third candidate control channel contains a third CCE for a second reference signal, the fourth candidate control channel contains a fourth CCE for a third reference signal, the second reference signal is different from the third reference signal, the third candidate control channel is of the same aggregation level as the fourth candidate control channel, the ith candidate control channel unit included in the third candidate control channel and the ith candidate control channel unit included in the fourth candidate control channel use different reference signals, i is an integer greater than or equal to 0 and smaller than n, and n is the number of candidate control channel units included in the third candidate control channel or the fourth candidate control channel.

25. An apparatus for transmitting information, the apparatus comprising:

a transceiving unit, configured to receive control information sent by a network device on a first candidate control channel of a first aggregation level in a plurality of candidate control channels;

26. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the transceiver unit is further configured to:

the device further comprises:

a determining unit configured to determine the QCL of the second candidate control channel according to the configuration information and determine the QCL of the first candidate control channel according to the QCL of the second candidate control channel.

27. The apparatus of claim 25 or 26, wherein the second reference signal or the fourth reference signal is at least one of a broadcast channel reference signal, a phase tracking reference signal (PT-RS), a tracking reference signal (T-RS), a demodulation reference signal of a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), a Common Reference Signal (CRS), a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS), or a synchronization signal.

28. An apparatus for transmitting information, the apparatus comprising:

29. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein the transceiver unit is further configured to:

30. The apparatus of claim 28 or 29, wherein the second reference signal or the fourth reference signal is at least one of a broadcast channel reference signal, a phase tracking reference signal (PT-RS), a tracking reference signal (T-RS), a demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) of a PDSCH, a Common Reference Signal (CRS), a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) or a synchronization signal.