CN114390678A

CN114390678A - Apparatus and method for paging of UE

Info

Publication number: CN114390678A
Application number: CN202111166199.1A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 林晓翔; 苏迪普·帕拉特
Original assignee: Intel Corp
Current assignee: Intel Corp
Priority date: 2020-10-05
Filing date: 2021-09-30
Publication date: 2022-04-22

Abstract

The present disclosure provides an apparatus and method for paging of a UE. An apparatus for a network comprising: an RF interface circuit; and processing circuitry coupled with the RF interface circuitry and configured to: allocating a subgroup ID to the UE, the subgroup ID identifying a subgroup to which the UE belongs and a UE paging subgroup space associated with the subgroup; and providing the subgroup ID to the RF interface circuitry for transmission to the UE prior to the UE entering an idle mode or an inactive mode, wherein the UE pages the subgroup space for specifying resources or configurations for paging of the UE.

Description

Apparatus and method for paging of UE

Technical Field

Embodiments of the present disclosure relate generally to wireless communications, and in particular, to an apparatus and method for paging of a User Equipment (UE).

Background

In release 15 of the 3GPP standard (Rel-15), the UE determines the paging frame and paging occasion according to a formula based on the UE Identity (ID), e.g. specified in Technical Specification (TS) 38.304. In this case, the UEs in the cell are distributed over different paging frames and paging occasions. However, depending on the paging capabilities of the communication system, multiple UEs may still eventually use the same paging frame and paging occasion. If one UE among a plurality of UEs using the same paging frame and paging occasion is paged through a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), other UEs using the same paging frame and paging occasion will have to decode Physical Downlink Control Channels (PDCCHs) and PDSCHs not intended for these UEs, resulting in a waste of UE power.

Disclosure of Invention

An aspect of the present disclosure provides an apparatus for a network, comprising: an RF interface circuit; and processing circuitry coupled with the RF interface circuitry and configured to: allocating a subgroup ID to the UE, the subgroup ID identifying a subgroup to which the UE belongs and a UE paging subgroup space associated with the subgroup; and providing the subgroup ID to the RF interface circuitry for transmission to the UE prior to the UE entering an idle mode or an inactive mode, wherein the UE pages the subgroup space for specifying resources or configurations for paging of the UE.

Another aspect of the present disclosure provides an apparatus for a UE, comprising: an RF interface circuit; and processing circuitry coupled with the RF interface circuitry and configured to: decoding a subgroup identification, ID, of the UE, the subgroup ID received from the radio access network, RAN, or the core network, CN, via the RF interface circuitry prior to the UE entering the idle mode or the inactive mode, the subgroup ID being allocated by the RAN or the CN for identifying a subgroup to which the UE belongs and a UE paging subgroup space associated with the subgroup; and monitoring the paging signal on a resource or configuration specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

Drawings

Embodiments of the present disclosure will be described by way of example, and not limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which like references indicate similar elements.

Fig. 1 illustrates an example paging procedure associated with a UE, a Radio Access Network (RAN), and a Core Network (CN), in accordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure.

Fig. 2 illustrates an example paging procedure associated with a UE, a source RAN node, a target RAN node, and a CN in accordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure.

Fig. 3 illustrates example operations associated with an example paging procedure to be performed at a network in accordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure.

Fig. 4 illustrates example operations associated with an example paging procedure to be performed at a UE in accordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure.

Fig. 5 illustrates an example network in accordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure.

Fig. 6 schematically illustrates a wireless network in accordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure.

Fig. 7 is a block diagram illustrating components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and performing any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, according to some example embodiments.

Detailed Description

Various aspects of the illustrative embodiments will be described using terms commonly employed by those skilled in the art to convey the substance of the disclosure to others skilled in the art. However, it will be readily appreciated by those skilled in the art that many alternative embodiments may be practiced using portions of the described aspects. For purposes of explanation, specific numbers, materials, and configurations are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the illustrative embodiments. However, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that alternative embodiments may be practiced without the specific details. In other instances, well-known features may be omitted or simplified in order not to obscure the illustrative embodiments.

Further, various operations will be described as multiple discrete operations, in a manner that is most helpful in understanding the illustrative embodiments; however, the order of description should not be construed as to imply that these operations are necessarily order dependent. In particular, these operations need not be performed in the order of presentation.

The phrases "in an embodiment," "in one embodiment," and "in some embodiments" are used repeatedly herein. The phrase generally does not refer to the same embodiment; however, it may refer to the same embodiment. The terms "comprising," "having," and "including" are synonymous, unless the context dictates otherwise. The phrases "A or B" and "A/B" mean "(A), (B) or (A and B)".

In Rel-15, the UE determines a Paging Frame (PF) and a Paging Occasion (PO) according to a formula based on the UE ID. For example, the PF and PO for paging of the UE may be determined by the following formulas specified in TS 38.304.

The System Frame Number (SFN) of the PF is determined according to the following formula:

(SFN+PF_offset)mod T＝(T div N)*(UE_ID mod N)

the index (i _ s) representing the index of the PO is determined according to the following formula:

i_s＝floor(UE_ID/N)mod Ns

the following parameters were used for the calculation of PF and i _ s above:

t: discontinuous Reception (DRX) cycle of the UE (if configured by Radio Resource Control (RRC) and/or upper layers, T is determined by the shortest of the UE-specific DRX values, and a default DRX value is broadcast in system information.

N: total paging frame number in T

Ns: number of paging occasions of PF

PF _ offset: offset for PF determination

UE _ ID: 5G-S-TMSI mod 1024, where 5G-S-TMSI is a 48-bit long bit string defined in TS 23.501

According to the above formula, the UEs in a cell are distributed over different paging frames and paging occasions. However, depending on the paging capabilities of the communication system, multiple UEs may still eventually use the same paging frame and paging occasion. If one UE among a plurality of UEs using the same paging frame and paging occasion is paged through a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), other UEs using the same paging frame and paging occasion will have to decode PDCCHs and PDSCHs not intended for these UEs, resulting in a waste of UE power. The probability of unnecessary decoding of PDSCH of a page not intended for a UE may be further reduced if UEs in the same paging frame and occasion can be further grouped and the network can indicate to the UE the subgroup to which the UE belongs by physical layer signaling (e.g., PDCCH by a different Radio Network Temporary Identity (RNTI), PDCCH Downlink Control Information (DCI), or different time/frequency resources of the PDCCH).

In release 16 of the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard for enhanced machine type communication (eMTC)/narrowband internet of things (NBIoT) (LTE Rel-16), the UE determines such UE sub-packets by formula, similar to traditional paging. The formula for LTE Rel-16eMTC/NBIoT is specified in TS 36.304, where the formulation of the formula is based on the UE non-access stratum (NAS) ID and some probability thresholds to determine the UE group (or wake-up signal (WUS) group) to which the UE belongs for the WUS or paging occasion. This approach may have the following disadvantages: such a formula needs to be specified in the specification and if the malicious UE knows more information (e.g. the UE NAS ID), the malicious UE may reject the real UE from receiving the service.

In view of the above, according to embodiments of the present disclosure, it is proposed that a network (e.g., a Radio Access Network (RAN) through RRC signaling or a Core Network (CN) through NAS signaling) may assign a subgroup ID to a UE according to a specified internal algorithm in the network before the UE enters an idle mode or an inactive mode and provide the subgroup ID to the UE. Such a sub-packet solution may have the following advantages: the formula for the sub-packet need not be specified in the specification. Therefore, the sub-packets can be made transparent to any UE, and the sub-packets can be left to the network for implementation to ensure the security of the sub-packets for the UE. Furthermore, with this sub-packet solution, the solution can be made flexible, allowing the network to implement an optimal approach, rather than binding to a specific algorithm that may not be optimal for the UE or may not be optimal in the future.

Fig. 1 illustrates an example paging procedure associated with a UE, a RAN, and a Core Network (CN), in accordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure.

As shown in fig. 1, this example paging procedure may involve three parties: UE, RAN and CN. Initially the UE may be in an RRC connected state and in some cases the UE may enter an RRC idle mode or an RRC inactive mode. According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, a RAN (e.g., AN Access Node (AN) in the RAN) may assign a subgroup ID to a UE and provide the subgroup ID to the UE before the UE enters AN RRC idle mode or AN RRC inactive mode. For example, the subgroup ID of the UE may be signaled to the UE in an RRC release message during an RRC release procedure. In addition, when the UE enters idle mode, the RAN may provide the UE's subgroup ID to the CN for CN-initiated paging. Specifically, the RAN may provide the subgroup ID of the UE to an access and mobility management function (AMF) in the CN to be stored in the AMF. Further, the RAN may store the subgroup ID of the UE locally as part of the UE context for RAN paging.

In some embodiments, the CN may assign a subgroup ID to the UE and provide the subgroup ID to the UE before the UE enters the RRC idle mode or the RRC inactive mode. For example, the subgroup ID of the UE may be signaled to the UE in a NAS message (e.g., a NAS registration message). To facilitate RAN-initiated paging, the CN may provide the RAN with the subgroup ID of the UE as part of the paging assistance information for the UE in RRC inactive mode, and the RAN may store the subgroup ID of the UE locally for RAN paging as part of the UE context.

How the network (e.g., RAN or CN) formulates the subgroup ID may be left to the network implementation to consider, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure. For example, the network may allocate the subgroup ID based on an Access Stratum (AS) ID (e.g., RNTI) of the UE, a non-access stratum (NAS) ID of the UE (e.g., serving-temporary mobile subscriber identity (S-TMSI), 5G S-TMSI of the UE, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI), etc.), a quality of service (QoS) of traffic of the UE, or a specified characteristic of the UE (e.g., paging rate of the UE). The subgroup ID may be configured to identify a subgroup to which the UE belongs and a UE paging subgroup space associated with the subgroup. For example, the UE paging subgroup space may include: an RNTI space reserved for multiple paging RNTIs (P-RNTIs), a subgroup ID space (number of reserved bits) reserved in DCI, or a total amount of physical time or frequency or code resources configured for a subgroup.

In an embodiment, the UE paging subgroup space may be configured to specify resources or configurations for paging of the UE. In particular, the network may assign and provide a subgroup ID for the UE before the UE enters idle mode or inactive mode. The UE may store the network assigned subgroup ID. The network may also store the subgroup ID of the UE locally as part of the UE context. Then, when the UE is in idle mode or inactive mode, the network may derive the resources or configurations (e.g., physical layer resources, P _ RNTI, reserved bits in DCI, etc.) specified by the UE paging subgroup space to utilize the resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space for paging for the UE. On the other hand, the UE may derive a UE paging subgroup space from the subgroup ID and monitor the paging signal on the resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space. In addition, for CN paging of a UE in idle mode, as described above, when the UE enters idle mode, the network may provide a subgroup ID to the AMF in the CN. When the CN initiates paging for a UE in idle mode, the AMF may encode the subgroup ID in a CN paging message and transmit the CN paging message to the RAN, and the RAN may then perform paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

As described above, a network node (e.g., a source RAN node) may page a UE (if the UE is in a RAN paging area of the source RAN node) using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging sub-group space. For a cell of another RAN node (e.g., when the UE moves to another cell of another RAN node in the RAN paging area), the source RAN node may provide the subgroup ID of the UE to be paged to the other RAN node along with the RAN paging message. The other RAN node may also be referred to herein as a target RAN node to correspond to a source RAN node configured to provide a subgroup ID for the UE. Thus, the target RAN node may determine the corresponding physical resource or P-RNTI for paging the UE or indicate a subgroup ID in the DCI to signal the UE to receive the page.

As shown in fig. 2, similar to the paging procedure in fig. 1, in the case where the RAN allocates a sub-group ID before the UE enters the RRC idle mode or the RRC inactive mode, the source RAN node may allocate the sub-group ID for the UE and provide the sub-group ID to the UE. The difference is that the paging procedure in fig. 2 also involves the target RAN node. According to the paging procedure in fig. 2, when the UE is not within the paging area of the source RAN node, the source RAN node may provide the target RAN node with the subgroup ID of the UE and instruct the target RAN node to determine a UE paging subgroup space according to the subgroup ID and perform paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space. For example, when a change of anchor RAN occurs, a subgroup ID of the UE may be transmitted from the source RAN node to the target RAN node as part of the UE context. In particular, when a change to an anchor RAN is required (e.g., a handover occurs, a recovery/re-establishment, etc.), a subgroup ID for a UE may be communicated from a source RAN to a target RAN as part of the UE context during the handover and recovery/re-establishment. Another approach is to provide the UE with a new subgroup ID at each RRC release.

As described in the above embodiments, during the RRC release procedure, the UE's subgroup ID may be allocated and provided to the UE through an RRC release message. However, there may be some cases where the UE enters idle mode without the RRC release procedure, i.e., without receiving the RRC release message. This may occur when a Radio Link Failure (RLF) occurs or a recovery failure (failure) occurs.

In all RLF cases except one exception, the UE may indicate "RRC connection failure" to the UE NAS and the UE NAS may perform a NAS recovery procedure (i.e., it performs Tracking Area Update (TAU) or other NAS signaling) to align the RRC state of the UE with the network. Thus, upon successful NAS recovery, the assigned subgroup ID may be provided to the UE. For exceptional cases, the UE does not activate AS security mode before RLF occurs. In this case, the UE should continue to reuse the previously allocated subgroup ID. In other words, when RLF occurs and the UE activates AS security mode before RLF, the UE may initiate NAS recovery procedure and instruct RAN or CN to allocate the subgroup ID of the UE after NAS recovery is successfully completed; when RLF occurs and the UE does not activate AS security mode before RLF, the UE may use the previously allocated subgroup ID, i.e., the UE may monitor for paging signals on resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space associated with the UE's subgroup ID previously allocated by the RAN or CN.

In case of recovery failure, the UE may also enter RRC idle mode without RRC release procedure. According to item 5.3.1.4 of TS 24.501, if the recovery failure is not related to access barring, the UE will enter 5GMM-IDLE mode and will thus initiate a registration procedure for NAS connection recovery upon recovery failure. Therefore, for this case, the allocated subgroup ID may be provided to the UE after the NAS recovery is successful. For the case where access is barred (i.e. recovery failure is related to access barring), the UE should continue to reuse the previously allocated subgroup ID because recovery is blocked by access barring. In other words, when a recovery failure occurs at the UE and the recovery failure is not related to access barring, the UE may initiate a registration procedure for NAS recovery and instruct the RAN or CN to allocate a subgroup ID of the UE after the NAS recovery is successfully completed; when a recovery failure occurs at the UE and the recovery failure relates to access barring, the UE may use the previously assigned subgroup ID, i.e., the UE may monitor for paging signals on resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space associated with the UE's subgroup ID previously assigned by the RAN or CN.

Further, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure, if a radio failure occurs during the allocation of a subgroup ID, the network may not know whether the UE receives a new subgroup ID and whether the UE will use an old or new subgroup ID. In this case, the network may page the UE in the UE paging subgroup space identified by both the old subgroup ID and the new subgroup ID.

As described above, according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, it is proposed that the network may allocate and provide a subgroup ID to the UE before the UE enters an idle mode or an inactive mode, and a paging procedure between the network and the UE may be performed based on the allocated subgroup ID to allow the UE to monitor a paging signal from the network only by monitoring a specific resource or configuration identified by the subgroup ID. For purposes of illustration, operations associated with paging procedures to be performed at a network (e.g., RAN or CN) and a UE will be described below with reference to fig. 3 and 4, respectively.

Fig. 3 illustrates example operations associated with an example paging procedure to be performed at a network in accordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure. These example operations may include operations 310 through 320, which will be described in detail below.

In operation 310, the network may assign a subgroup ID to the UE, the subgroup ID identifying a subgroup to which the UE belongs and a UE paging subgroup space associated with the subgroup. The UE paging subgroup space may be configured to specify resources or configurations for paging of the UE.

According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, the UE paging sub-group space may include: RNTI spaces reserved for a plurality of P-RNTIs; a bitmap or code point form subgroup ID space reserved in DCI; or the total amount of physical time, frequency or code resources configured for the subgroup. The subgroup ID may be assigned by the network during an RRC release procedure or NAS procedure and is assigned based on the AS ID of the UE, the NAS ID of the UE, the QoS of the traffic of the UE, or specified UE characteristics.

At operation 320, the network may send a subgroup ID to the UE before the UE enters idle mode or inactive mode. For example, the RAN may send the subgroup ID to the UE by encoding the subgroup ID in an RRC release message and sending the RRC release message to the UE, and the RAN may instruct the UE to monitor for paging signals on resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

In accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network may perform further operations associated with the paging procedure in addition to

operations

310 and 320. For example, in the case where the RAN allocates a sub-group ID, the RAN may store the sub-group ID in the RAN when the UE enters an idle mode or an inactive mode. Further, when the UE enters idle mode, the RAN may send the subgroup ID to the CN (e.g., the AMF in the CN), decode a CN paging message received from the CN containing the subgroup ID, and perform paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space. In another example, in case that the CN allocates the sub group ID, when the UE enters the idle mode, the CN may store the sub group ID in the CN, and the RAN may decode a CN paging message including the sub group ID received from the CN. In addition, the CN may send the subgroup ID to the RAN before the UE enters the inactive mode, and the RAN may perform paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, the RAN may be referred to as a source RAN, and when a UE is not within its paging area, the source RAN may send a subgroup ID of the UE to the target RAN and instruct the target RAN to determine a UE paging subgroup space from the subgroup ID and perform paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space. In one example, when a change occurs at the anchor RAN, the subgroup ID of the UE may be communicated from the source RAN to the target RAN as part of the UE context.

According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, when the UE enters an idle mode or an inactive mode without an RRC release procedure, a subgroup ID may be allocated and transmitted to the UE after successful completion of NAS recovery. Further, when RLF occurs during allocation of a subgroup ID, the network may perform paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by both the current UE paging subgroup space and the UE paging subgroup space associated with the UE's previously allocated subgroup ID.

Fig. 4 illustrates example operations associated with an example paging procedure to be performed at a UE in accordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure. These example operations may include operations 410 through 420, which will be described in detail below.

In operation 410, the UE may decode a subgroup ID of the UE received from a network (e.g., RAN or CN) before the UE enters an idle mode or an inactive mode. The subgroup ID is assigned by the RAN or CN to identify the subgroup to which the UE belongs and the UE paging subgroup space associated with the subgroup. The UE paging sub-group space may include: RNTI spaces reserved for a plurality of P-RNTIs; a reserved subgroup ID space (e.g., in bitmap or code point form) in DCI; or the total amount of physical time, frequency or code resources configured for the subgroup.

In operation 420, the UE may monitor for a paging signal on a resource or configuration specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, in case that the sub-group ID is allocated by the RAN, when the UE enters an idle mode or an inactive mode after the RRC release procedure, the UE may decode an RRC release message received from the RAN during the RRC release procedure. The subgroup ID may be assigned by the RAN during the RRC release procedure and included in the RRC release message. In the case where the sub-group ID is allocated by the CN, the UE may decode the NAS message received from the CN before the UE enters the idle mode or the inactive mode. The subgroup ID may be allocated by the CN during the NAS procedure and included in the NAS message.

According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, when the UE enters idle mode or inactive mode without RRC release procedure, the UE may initiate NAS recovery procedure and instruct the RAN or CN to allocate the subgroup ID of the UE after NAS recovery is successfully completed.

In one example, when RLF occurs and AS security mode is activated at the UE before RLF, the UE may initiate a NAS recovery procedure and instruct the RAN or CN to allocate a subgroup ID of the UE after NAS recovery successfully completes, but when RLF occurs and AS security mode is not activated at the UE before RLF, the UE may monitor for paging signals on resources or configurations specified by a UE paging subgroup space associated with the subgroup ID of the UE previously allocated by the RAN or CN.

In another example, when a recovery failure occurs at the UE and the recovery failure is independent of access barring, the UE may initiate a registration procedure for NAS recovery and instruct the RAN or CN to assign a subgroup ID of the UE after the NAS recovery is successfully completed, but when a recovery failure occurs at the UE and the recovery failure is related to access barring, the UE may monitor for paging signals on resources or configurations specified by a UE paging subgroup space associated with the subgroup ID of the UE previously assigned by the RAN or CN.

Fig. 5 and 6 illustrate various systems, devices, and components that may implement aspects of the disclosed embodiments.

Fig. 5 shows a diagram of a network 500 in accordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure. The network 500 may operate in a manner consistent with the 3GPP technical specifications for LTE or 5G/NR systems. However, the example embodiments are not limited in this respect, and the described embodiments may be applied to other networks, such as future 3GPP systems and the like, that benefit from the principles described herein.

Network 500 may include a UE 502, which may include any mobile or non-mobile computing device designed to communicate with RAN504 via an over-the-air connection. The UE 502 may be, but is not limited to, a smartphone, a tablet, a wearable computer device, a desktop computer, a laptop computer, an in-vehicle infotainment device, an in-vehicle entertainment device, an instrument cluster, a heads-up display device, an in-vehicle diagnostic device, a dashboard mobile device, a mobile data terminal, an electronic engine management system, an electronic/engine control unit, an electronic/engine control module, an embedded system, a sensor, a microcontroller, a control module, an engine management system, a networked appliance, a machine-type communication device, an M2M or D2D device, an IoT device, and/or the like.

In some embodiments, the network 500 may include multiple UEs directly coupled to each other through edge link interfaces. The UE may be an M2M/D2D device that communicates using a physical side link channel (e.g., without limitation, a physical side link broadcast channel (PSBCH), a physical side link discovery channel (PSDCH), a physical side link shared channel (PSSCH), a physical side link control channel (PSCCH), a physical side link fundamental channel (PSFCH), etc.).

In some embodiments, the UE 502 may also communicate with the AP506 over an over-the-air connection. The AP506 may manage WLAN connections that may be used to offload some/all network traffic from the RAN 504. The connection between the UE 502 and the AP506 may be in accordance with any IEEE 802.13 protocol, wherein the AP506 may be wireless fidelity (WiFi)

A router. In some embodiments, the UE 502, RAN504, and AP506 may utilize cellular WLAN aggregation (e.g., LTE-WLAN aggregation (LWA)/lightweight ip (lwip)). Cellular WLAN aggregation may involve a UE 502 configured by a RAN504 to utilize both cellular radio resources and WLAN resources.

The RAN504 may include one or more Access Nodes (ANs), such as AN 508. The AN508 may terminate the air interface protocols of the UE 502 by providing access stratum protocols including RRC, Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP), Radio Link Control (RLC), Medium Access Control (MAC), and L1 protocols. In this manner, AN508 may enable data/voice connectivity between CN520 and UE 502. In some embodiments, AN508 may be implemented in a separate device or as one or more software entities running on a server computer, as part of a virtual network, for example, which may be referred to as a CRAN or pool of virtual baseband units. AN508 may be referred to as a Base Station (BS), a gNB, a RAN node, AN evolved node b (eNB), a next generation eNB (ng-eNB), a node b (nodeb), a roadside unit (RSU), a TRxP, a TRP, etc. The AN508 may be a macrocell base station or a low power base station for providing microcells, picocells, or other similar cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacities, or higher bandwidths than macrocells.

In embodiments where the RAN504 includes multiple ANs, they may be coupled to each other over AN X2 interface (in the case where the RAN504 is AN LTE RAN) or AN Xn interface (in the case where the RAN504 is a 5G RAN). The X2/Xn interface, which may be separated into a control plane interface/user plane interface in some embodiments, may allow the AN to communicate information related to handover, data/context transfer, mobility, load management, interference coordination, etc.

The ANs of the RAN504 may each manage one or more cells, groups of cells, component carriers, etc., to provide the UE 502 with AN air interface for network access. The UE 502 may be simultaneously connected with multiple cells provided by the same or different ANs of the RAN 504. For example, UE 502 and RAN504 may use carrier aggregation to allow UE 502 to connect with multiple component carriers, each corresponding to a primary cell (Pcell) or a secondary cell (Scell). In a dual connectivity scenario, the first AN may be a primary node providing a Master Cell Group (MCG) and the second AN may be a secondary node providing a Secondary Cell Group (SCG). The first/second AN can be any combination of eNB, gNB, ng-eNB, etc.

RAN504 may provide an air interface over a licensed spectrum or an unlicensed spectrum. To operate in unlicensed spectrum, a node may use a Licensed Assisted Access (LAA), enhanced LAA (elaa), and/or further enhanced LAA (felaa) mechanism based on Carrier Aggregation (CA) technology with PCell/Scell. Prior to accessing the unlicensed spectrum, the node may perform a media/carrier sensing operation based on, for example, a Listen Before Talk (LBT) protocol.

In a vehicle-to-everything (V2X) scenario, the UE 502 or AN508 may be or act as a Road Side Unit (RSU), which may refer to any transport infrastructure entity for V2X communications. The RSU may be implemented in or by AN appropriate AN or stationary (or relatively stationary) UE. An RSU implemented in or by a UE may be referred to as a "UE-type RSU"; an RSU implemented in or by an eNB may be referred to as an "eNB-type RSU"; RSUs implemented in the next generation nodeb (gNB) or by the gNB may be referred to as "gNB-type RSUs"; and so on. In one example, the RSU is a computing device coupled with radio frequency circuitry located at the curb side that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs. The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry for storing intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, and applications/software for sensing and controlling ongoing vehicle and pedestrian traffic. The RSU may provide very low latency communications required for high speed events, e.g., collision avoidance, traffic warnings, etc. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may provide other cellular/WLAN communication services. The components of the RSU may be enclosed in a weatherproof enclosure suitable for outdoor installation and may include a network interface controller to provide a wired connection (e.g., ethernet) to a traffic signal controller or backhaul network.

In some embodiments, RAN504 may be an LTE RAN 510 including an evolved node b (eNB), e.g., eNB 512. The LTE RAN 510 may provide an LTE air interface with the following characteristics: SCS at 15 kHz; a CP-OFDM waveform for DL and an SC-FDMA waveform for UL; turbo codes for data and TBCC for control, etc. The LTE air interface may rely on CSI-RS for CSI acquisition and beam management; relying on a PDSCH/PDCCH demodulation reference signal (DMRS) for PDSCH/PDCCH demodulation; and relying on CRS for cell search and initial acquisition, channel quality measurements, and channel estimation for coherent demodulation/detection at the UE. The LTE air interface may operate over the sub-6 GHz band.

In some embodiments, RAN504 may be a Next Generation (NG) -RAN 514 having a gNB (e.g., gNB 516) or a gn-eNB (e.g., NG-eNB 518). The gNB 516 may connect with 5G-enabled UEs using a 5G NR interface. The gNB 516 may be connected to the 5G core through an NG interface, which may include an N2 interface or an N3 interface. The Ng-eNB 518 may also be connected with the 5G core over the Ng interface, but may be connected with the UE over the LTE air interface. The gNB 516 and ng-eNB 518 may be connected to each other through an Xn interface.

In some embodiments, the NG interface may be divided into two parts, a NG user plane (NG-U) interface, which carries traffic data between nodes of the NG-RAN 514 and the UPF548, and a NG control plane (NG-C) interface, which is a signaling interface (e.g., the N2 interface) between the NG-RAN 514 and nodes of the access and mobility management function (AMF) 544.

The NG-RAN 514 may provide a 5G-NR air interface with the following characteristics: variable SCS; CP-OFDM for DL, CP-OFDM for UL, and DFT-s-OFDM; polarity, repetition, simplex, and Reed-Muller (Reed-Muller) codes for control, and LDPC for data. The 5G-NR air interface may rely on CSI-RS, PDSCH/PDCCH DMRS similar to the LTE air interface. The 5G-NR air interface may not use CRS, but may use PBCH DMRS for PBCH demodulation; performing phase tracking of the PDSCH using the PTRS; and time tracking using the tracking reference signal. The 5G-NR air interface may operate over the FR1 frequency band, which includes the sub-6 GHz band, or the FR2 frequency band, which includes the 24.25GHz to 52.6GHz band. The 5G-NR air interface may include SSBs, which are regions of a downlink resource grid including PSS/SSS/PBCH.

In some embodiments, the 5G-NR air interface may use BWP for various purposes. For example, BWP may be used for dynamic adaptation of SCS. For example, the UE 502 may be configured with multiple BWPs, where each BWP configuration has a different SCS. When the BWP is indicated to the UE 502 to change, the SCS of the transmission also changes. Another use case for BWP is related to power saving. In particular, the UE 502 may be configured with multiple BWPs with different numbers of frequency resources (e.g., PRBs) to support data transmission in different traffic load scenarios. BWPs containing a smaller number of PRBs may be used for data transmission with smaller traffic load while allowing power savings at the UE 502 and, in some cases, the gNB 516. BWPs containing a large number of PRBs may be used in scenarios with higher traffic loads.

RAN504 is communicatively coupled to CN520, which comprises a network element, to provide various functions to support data and telecommunications services to customers/subscribers (e.g., users of UE 502). The components of CN520 may be implemented in one physical node or in different physical nodes. In some embodiments, NFV may be used to virtualize any or all of the functions provided by the network elements of CN520 onto physical computing/storage resources in servers, switches, and the like. A logical instance of CN520 may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instantiation of a portion of CN520 may be referred to as a network subslice.

In some embodiments, CN520 may be LTE CN 522, which may also be referred to as Evolved Packet Core (EPC). LTE CN 522 may include a Mobility Management Entity (MME)524, a Serving Gateway (SGW)526, a Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN)528, a Home Subscriber Server (HSS)530, a Proxy Gateway (PGW)532, and a policy control and charging rules function (PCRF)534, which are coupled to each other by an interface (or "reference point") as shown. The functions of the elements of LTE CN 522 may be briefly introduced as follows.

The MME 524 may implement mobility management functions to track the current location of the UE 502 to facilitate patrol, bearer activation/deactivation, handover, gateway selection, authentication, etc.

The SGW 526 may terminate the S1 interface towards the RAN and route data packets between the RAN and the LTE CN 522. SGW 526 may be a local mobility anchor for inter-RAN node handovers and may also provide an anchor for inter-3 GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful interception, billing, and some policy enforcement.

The SGSN 528 can track the location of the UE 502 and perform security functions and access control. In addition, the SGSN 528 may perform EPC inter-node signaling for mobility between different RAT networks; PDN and S-GW selection specified by MME 524; MME selection for handover, etc. The S3 reference point between MME 524 and SGSN 528 may enable user and bearer information exchange for inter-3 GPP access network mobility in idle/active state.

HSS 530 may include a database for network users that includes subscription-related information that supports network entities handling communication sessions. HSS 530 may provide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization, naming/addressing resolution, location dependency, etc. An S6a reference point between HSS 530 and MME 524 may enable the transmission of subscription and authentication data to authenticate/authorize user access to LTE CN 520.

PGW 532 may terminate the SGi interface towards Data Network (DN)536, which may include application/content server 538. The PGW 532 may route data packets between the LTE CN 522 and the data network 536. PGW 532 may be coupled with SGW 526 through S5 reference points to facilitate user plane tunneling and tunnel management. PGW 532 may also include nodes (e.g., PCEFs) for policy enforcement and charging data collection. Additionally, the SGi reference point between PGW 532 and data network 536 may be, for example, an operator external public, private PDN, or an operator internal packet data network for providing IMS services. The PGW 532 may be coupled with the PCRF 534 via the Gx reference point.

PCRF 534 is the policy and charging control element of LTE CN 522. The PCRF 534 can be communicatively coupled to the application/content server 538 to determine the appropriate QoS and charging parameters for a service flow. The PCRF 532 may provide the associated rules to the PCEF (via the Gx reference point) with the appropriate TFT and QCI.

In some embodiments, CN520 may be a 5G core network (5GC) 540. The 5GC 540 may include an authentication server function (AUSF)542, an access and mobility management function (AMF)544, a Session Management Function (SMF)546, a User Plane Function (UPF)548, a Network Slice Selection Function (NSSF)550, a network open function (NEF)552, an NF storage function (NRF)554, a Policy Control Function (PCF)556, a Unified Data Management (UDM)558, and an Application Function (AF)560, which are coupled to one another by interfaces (or "reference points"), as shown. The functions of the elements of the 5GC 540 may be briefly described as follows.

The AUSF 542 may store data for authentication of the UE 502 and handle authentication related functions. The AUSF 542 may facilitate a common authentication framework for various access types. The AUSF 542 may exhibit a Nausf service based interface in addition to communicating with other elements of the 5GC 540 through reference points as shown.

The AMF 544 may allow other functions of the 5GC 540 to communicate with the UE 502 and the RAN504 and to subscribe to notifications regarding mobility events for the UE 502. The AMF 544 may be responsible for registration management (e.g., registering the UE 502), connection management, reachability management, mobility management, lawful interception of AMF related events, and access authentication and authorization. AMF 544 may provide for the transmission of Session Management (SM) messages between UE 502 and SMF546 and act as a transparent proxy for routing SM messages. The AMF 544 may also provide for the transmission of SMS messages between the UE 502 and the SMSF. The AMF 544 may interact with the AUSF 542 and the UE 502 to perform various security anchoring and context management functions. Further, AMF 544 may be a termination point for the RAN CP interface, which may include or be an N2 reference point between RAN504 and AMF 544; the AMF 544 may serve as a termination point for NAS (N1) signaling and perform NAS ciphering and integrity protection. The AMF 544 may also support NAS signaling with the UE 502 over the N3 IWF interface.

SMF546 may be responsible for SM (e.g., session establishment, tunnel management between UPF548 and AN 508); UE IP address assignment and management (including optional authorization); selection and control of the UP function; configuring flow control at the UPF548 to route the flow to the appropriate destination; termination of the interface to the policy control function; controlling a portion of policy enforcement, charging, and QoS; lawful interception (for SM events and interface to the LI system); terminate the SM portion of the NAS message; a downlink data notification; initiating AN-specific SM message (sent to AN508 over N2 through AMF 544); and determining an SSC pattern for the session. SM may refer to the management of PDU sessions, and a PDU session or "session" may refer to a PDU connectivity service that provides or enables the exchange of PDUs between the UE 502 and the data network 536.

The UPF548 may serve as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter-RAT mobility, an external PDU session point interconnected with the data network 536, and a branch point to support multi-homed PDU sessions. The UPF548 can also perform packet routing and forwarding, perform packet inspection, perform the user plane portion of policy rules, lawful intercepted packets (UP collection), perform traffic usage reporting, perform QoS processing for the user plane (e.g., packet filtering, gating, UL/DL rate enforcement), perform uplink traffic verification (e.g., SDF to QoS flow mapping), transport level packet marking in the uplink and downlink, and perform downlink packet buffering and downlink data notification triggering. The UPF548 may include an uplink classifier to support routing of traffic flows to a data network.

NSSF 550 may select a set of network slice instances that serve UE 502. NSSF 550 may also determine allowed Network Slice Selection Assistance Information (NSSAI) and mapping to a single NSSAI (S-NSSAI) of the subscription, if desired. The NSSF 550 may also determine a set of AMFs to use to serve the UE 502, or determine a list of candidate AMFs, based on a suitable configuration and possibly by querying the NRFs 554. Selection of a set of network slice instances for the UE 502 may be triggered by the AMF 544 with which the UE 502 registers by interacting with the NSSF 550, which may result in a change in the AMF. NSSF 550 may interact with AMF 544 via the N22 reference point; and may communicate with another NSSF in the visited network via an N31 reference point (not shown). Further, NSSF 550 may expose an interface based on the NSSF service.

NEF552 can securely expose services and capabilities provided by 3GPP network functions for third parties, internal disclosure/re-disclosure, AF (e.g., AF 560), edge computing or fog computing systems, and the like. In these embodiments, NEF552 may authenticate, authorize, or throttle AF. NEF552 may also translate information exchanged with AF 560 and information exchanged with internal network functions. For example, the NEF552 may convert between an AF service identifier and internal 5GC information. NEF552 may also receive information from other NFs based on their public capabilities. This information may be stored as structured data at NEF552 or at data store NF using a standardized interface. NEF552 may then re-disclose the stored information to other NFs and AFs, or for other purposes such as analysis. In addition, NEF552 may expose an interface based on the Nnef service.

NRF 554 may support a service discovery function, receive NF discovery requests from NF instances, and provide information of discovered NF instances to NF instances. NRF 554 also maintains information of available NF instances and their supported services. As used herein, the terms "instantiate," "instance," and the like may refer to creating an instance, "instance" may refer to a specific occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during execution of program code. Further, NRF 554 may expose an interface based on the Nnrf service.

PCF 556 may provide policy rules to control plane functions to enforce them, and may also support a unified policy framework to manage network behavior. PCF 556 may also implement a front end to access subscription information related to policy decisions in UDR of UDM 558. In addition to communicating with functions through reference points as shown, PCF 556 also exhibits an Npcf service-based interface.

UDM 558 may process subscription-related information to support network entities handling communication sessions and may store subscription data for UE 502. For example, subscription data may be communicated via an N8 reference point between UDM 558 and AMF 544. UDM 558 may include two parts: front end and UDR are applied. UDR may store policy data and subscription data for UDM 558 and PCF 556, and/or structured data and application data for disclosure (including PFD for application detection, application request information for multiple UEs 502) for NEF 552. UDR 221 may expose an Nudr service-based interface to allow UDM 558, PCF 556, and NEF552 to access a particular collection of stored data, as well as read, update (e.g., add, modify), delete, and subscribe to notifications of relevant data changes in the UDR. The UDM may include a UDM-FE that is responsible for handling credentials, location management, subscription management, and the like. Several different front ends may serve the same user in different transactions. The UDM-FE accesses subscription information stored in the UDR and performs authentication credential processing, user identification processing, access authorization, registration/mobility management, and subscription management. UDM 558 may expose a numm service based interface in addition to communicating with other NFs through reference points as shown.

The AF 560 can provide application impact on traffic routing, provide access to NEFs, and interact with the policy framework for policy control.

In some embodiments, the 5GC 540 may enable edge computing by selecting an operator/third party service that is geographically close to the point where the UE 502 attaches to the network. This may reduce latency and load on the network. To provide an edge computing implementation, the 5GC 540 may select a UPF548 near the UE 502 and perform traffic steering from the UPF548 to the data network 536 over an N6 interface. This may be based on UE subscription data, UE location, and information provided by AF 560. In this way, the AF 560 can affect UPF (re) selection and traffic routing. Based on operator deployment, the network operator may permit AF 560 to interact directly with the relevant NFs when AF 560 is considered a trusted entity. In addition, the AF 560 may expose a Naf service-based interface.

The data network 536 may represent various network operator services, internet access, or third party services that may be provided by one or more servers, including, for example, an application/content server 538.

Fig. 6 schematically illustrates a wireless network 600 in accordance with various embodiments. The wireless network 600 may include a UE 602 in wireless communication with AN 604. The UE 602 and the AN604 may be similar to and substantially interchangeable with the co-located components described elsewhere herein.

The UE 602 may be communicatively coupled with AN604 via a connection 606. Connection 606 is shown as an air interface to enable communicative coupling and may be consistent with a cellular communication protocol operating at millimeter wave (mmWave) or sub-6 GHz frequencies, such as the LTE protocol or the 5G NR protocol.

UE 602 may include a host platform 608 coupled with a modem platform 610. Host platform 608 may include application processing circuitry 612, which may be coupled with protocol processing circuitry 614 of modem platform 610. The application processing circuitry 612 may run various applications of source/receiver application data for the UE 602. The application processing circuitry 612 may also implement one or more layers of operations to send/receive application data to/from a data network. These layer operations may include transport (e.g., UDP) and internet (e.g., IP) operations.

Protocol processing circuit 614 may implement one or more layers of operations to facilitate the transmission or reception of data over connection 606. Layer operations implemented by the protocol processing circuit 614 may include, for example, MAC, RLC, PDCP, RRC, and NAS operations.

The modem platform 610 may further include digital baseband circuitry 616, the digital baseband circuitry 616 may implement one or more layer operations "below" the layer operations performed by the protocol processing circuitry 614 in the network protocol stack. These operations may include, for example, PHY operations including one or more of HARQ-ACK functions, scrambling/descrambling, encoding/decoding, layer mapping/demapping, modulation symbol mapping, received symbol/bit metric determination, multi-antenna port precoding/decoding, wherein these functions may include one or more of: space-time, space-frequency, or spatial coding, reference signal generation/detection, preamble sequence generation and/or decoding, synchronization sequence generation/detection, control channel signal blind decoding, and other related functions.

Modem platform 610 may further include transmit circuitry 618, receive circuitry 620, RF circuitry 622, and RF front end (RFFE) circuitry 624, which may include or be connected to one or more antenna panels 626. Briefly, the transmit circuit 618 may include a digital-to-analog converter, a mixer, Intermediate Frequency (IF) components, and the like; the receive circuitry 620 may include analog-to-digital converters, mixers, IF components, and the like; RF circuitry 622 may include low noise amplifiers, power tracking components, and the like; the RFFE circuitry 624 may include filters (e.g., surface/bulk acoustic wave filters), switches, antenna tuners, beam forming components (e.g., phased array antenna components), and so forth. The selection and arrangement of the components of transmit circuitry 618, receive circuitry 620, RF circuitry 622, RFFE circuitry 624, and antenna panel 626 (collectively, "transmit/receive components") may be specific to the details of a particular implementation, e.g., whether the communication is TDM or FDM, at mmWave or sub-6 GHz frequencies, etc. In some embodiments, the transmit/receive components may be arranged in multiple parallel transmit/receive chains, and may be arranged in the same or different chips/modules, etc.

In some embodiments, the protocol processing circuit 614 may include one or more instances of control circuitry (not shown) to provide control functionality for the transmit/receive components.

UE reception may be established by and via antenna panel 626, RFFE circuitry 624, RF circuitry 622, receive circuitry 620, digital baseband circuitry 616, and protocol processing circuitry 614. In some embodiments, the antenna panel 626 may receive transmissions from AN604 by receiving beamformed signals received by multiple antennas/antenna elements of one or more antenna panels 626.

UE transmissions may be established via and through protocol processing circuitry 614, digital baseband circuitry 616, transmit circuitry 618, RF circuitry 622, RFFE circuitry 624, and antenna panel 626. In some embodiments, the transmit component of the UE 604 may apply a spatial filter to the data to be transmitted to form the transmit beam transmitted by the antenna elements of the antenna panel 626.

Similar to UE 602, AN604 may include a host platform 628 coupled to a modem platform 630. The host platform 628 may include an application processing circuit 632 coupled with a protocol processing circuit 634 of the modem platform 630. The modem platform may also include digital baseband circuitry 636, transmit circuitry 638, receive circuitry 640, RF circuitry 642, RFFE circuitry 644, and antenna panel 646. The components of the AN604 may be similar to, and substantially interchangeable with, the synonymous components of the UE 602. In addition to performing data transmission/reception as described above, the components of AN604 may perform various logical functions including, for example, RNC functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management, and data packet scheduling.

Fig. 7 is a block diagram illustrating components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and performing any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, according to some example embodiments. In particular, fig. 7 shows a diagrammatic representation of hardware resources 700, which includes one or more processors (or processor cores) 710, one or more memory/storage devices 720, and one or more communication resources 730, each of which may be communicatively coupled by a bus 740. The hardware resources 700 may be part of a UE, AN, or LMF. For embodiments utilizing node virtualization (e.g., NFV), hypervisor 702 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/subslices to utilize hardware resources 700.

Processor 710 (e.g., a Central Processing Unit (CPU), a Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) processor, a Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC) processor, a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) such as a baseband processor, an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC), another processor, or any suitable combination thereof) may include, for example, processor 712 and processor 714.

Memory/storage 720 may include a main memory, a disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory/storage 720 may include, but is not limited to, any type of volatile or non-volatile memory, such as Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, solid state storage, and the like.

Communication resources 730 may include interconnection or network interface components or other suitable devices to communicate with one or more peripherals 704 or one or more databases 706 via network 708. For example, communication resources 730 may include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via a Universal Serial Bus (USB)), cellular communication components, NFC components, bluetooth

Components (e.g., bluetooth low energy), Wi-Fi components, and other communication components.

Instructions 750 may include software, programs, applications, applets, apps, or other executable code for causing at least any processor 710 to perform any one or more of the methods discussed herein. The instructions 750 may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of: processor 710 (e.g., within a processor's cache memory), memory/storage 720, or any suitable combination thereof. Further, any portion of instructions 750 may be communicated to hardware resource 700 from any combination of peripheral device 704 or database 706. Thus, the processor 710, memory/storage 720, peripherals 704, and the memory of database 706 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

The following paragraphs describe examples of various embodiments.

Example 1 includes an apparatus for a network, comprising: a Radio Frequency (RF) interface circuit; and processing circuitry coupled with the RF interface circuitry and configured to: allocating a subgroup Identification (ID) for a User Equipment (UE), the subgroup ID being used for identifying a subgroup to which the UE belongs and a UE paging subgroup space associated with the subgroup; and providing the subgroup ID to the RF interface circuitry for transmission to the UE prior to the UE entering an idle mode or an inactive mode, wherein the UE paging subgroup space is used to specify resources or configurations for paging of the UE.

Example 2 includes the apparatus of example 1, further comprising memory interface circuitry, and the processing circuitry is coupled with the memory interface circuitry and further configured to: providing the subgroup ID to the memory interface circuit for storage at the network when the UE enters the idle mode or the inactive mode.

Example 3 includes the apparatus of example 1, wherein the network is a radio access network, RAN.

Example 4 includes the apparatus of example 3, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: providing the subgroup ID to an access and mobility management function, AMF, in a core network, CN, for storage in the AMF when the UE enters the idle mode.

Example 5 includes the apparatus of examples 3 or 4, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to provide the subgroup ID to the RF interface circuitry for transmission to the UE by: encoding the subgroup ID in a Radio Resource Control (RRC) release message for transmission to the UE via the RF interface circuitry.

Example 6 includes the apparatus of example 1, wherein the network is a core network, CN.

Example 7 includes the apparatus of example 6, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to provide the subgroup ID to the RF interface circuitry for transmission to the UE by: encoding the subgroup ID in a non-access stratum (NAS) message for transmission to the UE via the RF interface circuitry.

Example 8 includes the apparatus of any of examples 1 to 7, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: performing paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

Example 9 includes the apparatus of example 4, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: decoding a CN paging message including the subgroup ID received from the CN; and performing paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

Example 10 includes the apparatus of example 6, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: providing the subgroup ID to AN access node, AN, in a radio access network, RAN, for storage in the AN, prior to the UE entering the inactive mode.

Example 11 includes the apparatus of example 3, wherein the apparatus is located at a source access node, AN, and the processing circuitry is further configured to: providing the subgroup ID of the UE to RF interface circuitry for transmission to a target AN when the UE is not within a paging area of the source AN; and instructing the target AN to determine the UE paging subgroup space according to the subgroup ID and perform paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

Example 12 includes the apparatus of example 10, wherein the AN is a source AN, and the subgroup ID is further provided to a target AN when the UE is not in a paging area of the source AN to instruct the target AN to determine the UE paging subgroup space according to the subgroup ID and perform paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

Example 13 includes the apparatus of example 12, wherein the subgroup ID of the UE is transmitted from the source AN to the target AN as part of context information of the UE when a change of anchor RAN occurs.

Example 14 includes the apparatus of any one of examples 1 to 13, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: instructing the UE to monitor for paging signals on resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

Example 15 includes the apparatus of any one of examples 1 to 14, wherein the UE paging sub-group space comprises: radio network temporary identifier RNTI spaces reserved for a plurality of paging radio network temporary identifiers P-RNTIs; a subgroup ID space in the form of a bitmap or code point reserved in the downlink control information DCI; or the total amount of physical time, frequency or code resources configured for the subset.

Example 16 includes the apparatus of any one of examples 1 to 15, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to allocate the subgroup ID during a radio resource control, RRC, release procedure or during a non-access stratum, NAS, procedure.

Example 17 includes the apparatus of any one of examples 1 to 16, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to allocate the subgroup ID based on an access stratum, AS, ID of the UE, a non-access stratum, NAS, ID of the UE, a quality of service, QoS, of traffic of the UE, or a specified characteristic of the UE.

Example 18 includes the apparatus of example 16, wherein when the UE enters the idle mode or the inactive mode without the RRC release procedure, the processing circuitry is configured to allocate and provide the subgroup ID to the UE after successful completion of non-access stratum, NAS, recovery.

Example 19 includes the apparatus of any one of examples 1 to 18, wherein when a radio link failure, RLF, occurs during the assigning of the subgroup ID, the processing circuitry is further configured to: performing paging for the UE with resources or configurations specified by both the UE paging subgroup space and a UE paging subgroup space associated with a previously assigned subgroup ID of the UE.

Example 20 includes an apparatus for a user equipment, UE, comprising: a Radio Frequency (RF) interface circuit; and processing circuitry coupled with the RF interface circuitry and configured to: decoding a subgroup identification, ID, of the UE, the subgroup ID received from a radio access network, RAN, or a core network, CN, via the RF interface circuitry prior to the UE entering an idle mode or an inactive mode, the subgroup ID allocated by the RAN or the CN to identify a subgroup to which the UE belongs and a UE paging subgroup space associated with the subgroup; and monitoring a paging signal on a resource or configuration specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

Example 21 includes the apparatus of example 20, wherein the UE paging sub-group space comprises: radio network temporary identifier RNTI spaces reserved for a plurality of paging radio network temporary identifiers P-RNTIs; a subgroup ID space in the form of a bitmap or code point reserved in the downlink control information DCI; or the total amount of physical time, frequency or code resources configured for the subset.

Example 22 includes the apparatus of example 20, wherein when a UE enters the idle mode or the inactive mode after a radio resource control, RRC, release procedure or a non-access stratum, NAS, procedure, the processing circuitry is configured to decode a subgroup ID of the UE by: decoding an RRC release message received from the RAN during the RRC release procedure or a NAS message received from the CN during the NAS procedure, wherein the subgroup ID is allocated by the RAN and included in the RRC release message during the RRC release procedure or allocated by the CN and included in the NAS message during the NAS procedure.

Example 23 includes the apparatus of any one of examples 20 to 22, wherein when the UE enters the idle mode or the inactive mode without a radio resource control, RRC, release procedure, the processing circuitry is further configured to: initiating a non-access stratum (NAS) recovery process, and instructing the RAN or the CN to allocate the subgroup ID of the UE after the NAS recovery is successfully completed.

Example 24 includes the apparatus of any one of examples 20 to 22, wherein, when a radio link failure, RLF, occurs and an access stratum, AS, security mode is activated at the UE prior to the RLF, the processing circuitry is further configured to: initiating a non-access stratum (NAS) recovery process, and instructing the RAN or the CN to allocate the subgroup ID of the UE after the NAS recovery is successfully completed.

Example 25 includes the apparatus of any one of examples 20 to 22, wherein, when a radio link failure, RLF, occurs and no access stratum, AS, security mode is activated at the UE prior to the RLF, the processing circuitry is further configured to: monitoring for paging signals on resources or configurations specified by a UE paging subgroup space associated with a subgroup ID of the UE previously allocated by the RAN or the CN.

Example 26 includes the apparatus of any one of examples 20 to 22, wherein when a recovery failure occurs at the UE and is independent of access barring, the processing circuitry is further configured to: initiate a registration procedure for non-access stratum, NAS, recovery and instruct the RAN or the CN to allocate the subgroup ID of the UE after NAS recovery is successfully completed.

Example 27 includes the apparatus of any one of examples 20 to 22, wherein, when a recovery failure occurs at the UE and the recovery failure relates to access barring, the processing circuitry is further configured to: monitoring for paging signals on resources or configurations specified by a UE paging subgroup space associated with a subgroup ID of the UE previously allocated by the RAN or the CN.

Example 28 includes a method performed at a network, comprising: allocating a subgroup Identification (ID) for a User Equipment (UE), the subgroup ID being used for identifying a subgroup to which the UE belongs and a UE paging subgroup space associated with the subgroup; and transmitting the subgroup ID to the UE before the UE enters an idle mode or an inactive mode, wherein the UE paging subgroup space is used to specify resources or configurations for paging of the UE.

Example 29 includes the method of example 28, further comprising: storing the subgroup ID at the network when the UE enters the idle mode or the inactive mode.

Example 30 includes the method of example 28, wherein the network is a radio access network, RAN.

Example 31 includes the method of example 30, further comprising: when the UE enters the idle mode, the subgroup ID is sent to an access and mobility management function, AMF, in a core network, CN, for storage in the AMF.

Example 32 includes the method of example 30 or 31, wherein transmitting the subgroup ID to the UE comprises: encoding the subgroup ID in a radio resource control, RRC, release message and transmitting the RRC release message to the UE.

Example 33 includes the method of example 28, wherein the network is a core network, CN.

Example 34 includes the method of example 33, wherein transmitting the subgroup ID to the UE comprises: encoding the subgroup ID in a non-access stratum (NAS) message and sending the NAS message to the UE.

Example 35 includes the method of any of examples 28 to 34, further comprising: performing paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

Example 36 includes the method of example 31, further comprising: decoding a CN paging message including the subgroup ID received from the CN; and performing paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

Example 37 includes the method of example 33, further comprising: providing the subgroup ID to AN access node, AN, in a radio access network, RAN, for storage in the AN, prior to the UE entering the inactive mode.

Example 38 includes the method of example 30, wherein the method is performed at a source access node, AN, and the method further comprises: when the UE is not in the paging area of the source AN, transmitting the subgroup ID of the UE to a target AN; and instructing the target AN to determine the UE paging subgroup space according to the subgroup ID and perform paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

Example 39 includes the method of example 37, wherein the AN is a source AN, and the subgroup ID is further provided to a target AN when the UE is not within a paging area of the source AN to instruct the target AN to determine the UE paging subgroup space from the subgroup ID and perform paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

Example 40 includes the method of example 39, wherein the subgroup ID of the UE is transmitted from the source AN to the target AN as part of context information of the UE when a change of anchor RAN occurs.

Example 41 includes the method of any one of examples 28 to 40, further comprising: instructing the UE to monitor for paging signals on resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

Example 42 includes the method of any one of examples 28 to 40, wherein the UE paging sub-group space comprises: radio network temporary identifier RNTI spaces reserved for a plurality of paging radio network temporary identifiers P-RNTIs; a subgroup ID space in the form of a bitmap or code point reserved in the downlink control information DCI; or the total amount of physical time, frequency or code resources configured for the subset.

Example 43 includes the method of any one of examples 28 to 42, wherein the subgroup ID is allocated during a radio resource control, RRC, release procedure or during a non-access stratum, NAS, procedure.

Example 44 includes the method of any one of examples 28 to 43, wherein the subgroup ID is allocated based on an access stratum, AS, ID of the UE, a non-access stratum, NAS, ID of the UE, a quality of service, QoS, of traffic of the UE, or a specified characteristic of the UE.

Example 45 includes the method of example 43, wherein the subgroup ID is allocated and sent to the UE after successful completion of non-access stratum, NAS, recovery when the UE enters the idle mode or the inactive mode without the RRC release procedure.

Example 46 includes the method of any one of examples 28 to 45, wherein when a radio link failure, RLF, occurs during the assigning the subgroup ID, the method further comprises: performing paging for the UE with resources or configurations specified by both the UE paging subgroup space and a UE paging subgroup space associated with a previously assigned subgroup ID of the UE.

Example 47 includes a method performed at a user equipment, UE, comprising: decoding a subgroup identification, ID, of the UE, the subgroup ID received from a radio access network, RAN, or a core network, CN, prior to the UE entering an idle mode or an inactive mode, the subgroup ID allocated by the RAN or the CN to identify a subgroup to which the UE belongs and a UE paging subgroup space associated with the subgroup; and monitoring a paging signal on a resource or configuration specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

Example 48 includes the method of example 47, wherein the UE paging sub-group space comprises: radio network temporary identifier RNTI spaces reserved for a plurality of paging radio network temporary identifiers P-RNTIs; a subgroup ID space in the form of a bitmap or code point reserved in the downlink control information DCI; or the total amount of physical time, frequency or code resources configured for the subset.

Example 49 includes the method of example 47, wherein when the UE enters the idle mode or the inactive mode after a radio resource control, RRC, release procedure or a non-access stratum, NAS, procedure, decoding the subgroup ID of the UE comprises: decoding an RRC release message received from the RAN during the RRC release procedure or a NAS message received from the CN during the NAS procedure, wherein the subgroup ID is allocated by the RAN and included in the RRC release message during the RRC release procedure or allocated by the CN and included in the NAS message during the NAS procedure.

Example 50 includes the method of any one of examples 47-49, wherein when the UE enters the idle mode or the inactive mode without a radio resource control, RRC, release procedure, the method further comprises: initiating a non-access stratum (NAS) recovery process, and instructing the RAN or the CN to allocate the subgroup ID of the UE after the NAS recovery is successfully completed.

Example 51 includes the method of any one of examples 47-49, wherein when a radio link failure, RLF, occurs and an access stratum, AS, security mode is activated at the UE prior to the RLF, the method further comprises: initiating a non-access stratum (NAS) recovery process, and instructing the RAN or the CN to allocate the subgroup ID of the UE after the NAS recovery is successfully completed.

Example 52 includes the method of any one of examples 47-49, wherein when a radio link failure, RLF, occurs and no access stratum, AS, security mode is activated at the UE prior to the RLF, the method further comprises: monitoring for paging signals on resources or configurations specified by a UE paging subgroup space associated with a subgroup ID of the UE previously allocated by the RAN or the CN.

Example 53 includes the method of any one of examples 47-49, wherein when a recovery failure occurs at the UE and is independent of access barring, the method further comprises: initiate a registration procedure for non-access stratum, NAS, recovery and instruct the RAN or the CN to allocate the subgroup ID of the UE after NAS recovery is successfully completed.

Example 54 includes the method of any one of examples 47-49, wherein when a recovery failure occurs at the UE and relates to access barring, the method further comprises: monitoring for paging signals on resources or configurations specified by a UE paging subgroup space associated with a subgroup ID of the UE previously allocated by the RAN or the CN.

Example 55 includes a computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, wherein the instructions, when executed by processing circuitry of a network, cause the processing circuitry to perform the method of any of examples 28-46.

Example 56 includes a computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, wherein the instructions, when executed by processing circuitry of a user equipment, UE, cause the processing circuitry to perform the method of any of examples 47-54.

Example 57 includes an apparatus for a network, comprising means for performing operations of the method of any of examples 28-46.

Example 58 includes an apparatus for a user equipment, UE, comprising means for performing operations of the method of any of examples 47-54.

Although certain embodiments have been illustrated and described herein for purposes of description, various alternative and/or equivalent embodiments or implementations calculated to achieve the same purposes may be substituted for the embodiments shown and described without departing from the scope of the present disclosure. This application is intended to cover any adaptations or variations of the embodiments discussed herein. Therefore, it is manifestly intended that the embodiments described herein be limited only by the claims and the equivalents thereof.

Claims

1. An apparatus for a network, comprising:

a Radio Frequency (RF) interface circuit; and

processing circuitry coupled with the RF interface circuitry and configured to:

allocating a subgroup Identification (ID) for a User Equipment (UE), the subgroup ID being used for identifying a subgroup to which the UE belongs and a UE paging subgroup space associated with the subgroup; and

providing the subgroup ID to the RF interface circuitry for transmission to the UE prior to the UE entering an idle mode or an inactive mode,

wherein the UE paging sub-group space is used to specify resources or configurations for paging of the UE.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising memory interface circuitry, and the processing circuitry is coupled with the memory interface circuitry and further configured to: providing the subgroup ID to the memory interface circuit for storage at the network when the UE enters the idle mode or the inactive mode.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the network is a Radio Access Network (RAN).

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to: providing the subgroup ID to an access and mobility management function, AMF, in a core network, CN, for storage in the AMF when the UE enters the idle mode.

5. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to provide the subgroup ID to the RF interface circuitry for transmission to the UE by: encoding the subgroup ID in a Radio Resource Control (RRC) release message for transmission to the UE via the RF interface circuitry.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the network is a core network CN.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to provide the subgroup ID to the RF interface circuitry for transmission to the UE by: encoding the subgroup ID in a non-access stratum (NAS) message for transmission to the UE via the RF interface circuitry.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to: performing paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

9. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to:

decoding a CN paging message including the subgroup ID received from the CN; and

performing paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

10. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to: providing the subgroup ID to AN access node, AN, in a radio access network, RAN, for storage in the AN, prior to the UE entering the inactive mode.

11. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the apparatus is located at a source Access Node (AN), and the processing circuit is further configured to:

providing the subgroup ID of the UE to RF interface circuitry for transmission to a target AN when the UE is not within a paging area of the source AN; and is

Instructing the target AN to determine the UE paging subgroup space according to the subgroup ID and performing paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the AN is a source AN and the subgroup ID is further provided to a target AN when the UE is not within a paging area of the source AN to instruct the target AN to determine the UE paging subgroup space from the subgroup ID and perform paging for the UE using resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the subgroup ID of the UE is transmitted from the source AN to the target AN as part of context information of the UE when a change of anchor RAN occurs.

14. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to: instructing the UE to monitor for paging signals on resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

15. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the UE paging sub-group space comprises: radio network temporary identifier RNTI spaces reserved for a plurality of paging radio network temporary identifiers P-RNTIs; a subgroup ID space in the form of a bitmap or code point reserved in the downlink control information DCI; or the total amount of physical time, frequency or code resources configured for the subset.

16. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit is configured for allocating the subgroup ID during a radio resource control, RRC, release procedure or during a non-access stratum, NAS, procedure.

17. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to allocate the subgroup ID based on an access stratum AS ID of the UE, a non-access stratum NAS ID of the UE, a quality of service QoS of traffic of the UE, or a specified characteristic of the UE.

18. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein when the UE enters the idle mode or the inactive mode without the RRC release procedure, the processing circuitry is configured to allocate and provide the subgroup ID to the UE after successful completion of non-access stratum, NAS, recovery.

19. The apparatus of any of claims 1-18, wherein, when a Radio Link Failure (RLF) occurs during assigning the subgroup ID, the processing circuitry is further configured to: performing paging for the UE with resources or configurations specified by both the UE paging subgroup space and a UE paging subgroup space associated with a previously assigned subgroup ID of the UE.

20. An apparatus for a User Equipment (UE), comprising:

a Radio Frequency (RF) interface circuit; and

processing circuitry coupled with the RF interface circuitry and configured to:

decoding a subgroup identification, ID, of the UE, the subgroup ID received from a radio access network, RAN, or a core network, CN, via the RF interface circuitry prior to the UE entering an idle mode or an inactive mode, the subgroup ID allocated by the RAN or the CN to identify a subgroup to which the UE belongs and a UE paging subgroup space associated with the subgroup; and

monitoring for paging signals on resources or configurations specified by the UE paging subgroup space.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the UE paging sub-group space comprises: radio network temporary identifier RNTI spaces reserved for a plurality of paging radio network temporary identifiers P-RNTIs; a subgroup ID space in the form of a bitmap or code point reserved in the downlink control information DCI; or the total amount of physical time, frequency or code resources configured for the subset.

22. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein when a UE enters the idle mode or the inactive mode after a radio resource control, RRC, release procedure or a non-access stratum, NAS, procedure, the processing circuitry is configured to decode a subgroup ID of the UE by: decoding an RRC release message received from the RAN during the RRC release procedure or a NAS message received from the CN during the NAS procedure, wherein the subgroup ID is allocated by the RAN and included in the RRC release message during the RRC release procedure or allocated by the CN and included in the NAS message during the NAS procedure.

23. The apparatus of any of claims 20 to 22, wherein when the UE enters the idle mode or the inactive mode without a radio resource control, RRC, release procedure, the processing circuitry is further configured to: initiating a non-access stratum (NAS) recovery process, and instructing the RAN or the CN to allocate the subgroup ID of the UE after the NAS recovery is successfully completed.

24. The apparatus of any of claims 20 to 22, wherein, when a radio link failure, RLF, occurs and an access stratum, AS, security mode is activated at the UE prior to the RLF, the processing circuitry is further configured to: initiating a non-access stratum (NAS) recovery process, and instructing the RAN or the CN to allocate the subgroup ID of the UE after the NAS recovery is successfully completed.

25. The apparatus of any of claims 20 to 22, wherein, when a Radio Link Failure (RLF) occurs and an Access Stratum (AS) security mode is not activated at the UE prior to the RLF, the processing circuitry is further configured to: monitoring for paging signals on resources or configurations specified by a UE paging subgroup space associated with a subgroup ID of the UE previously allocated by the RAN or the CN.

26. The apparatus of any of claims 20 to 22, wherein, when a recovery failure occurs at the UE and is independent of access barring, the processing circuitry is further configured to: initiate a registration procedure for non-access stratum, NAS, recovery and instruct the RAN or the CN to allocate the subgroup ID of the UE after NAS recovery is successfully completed.

27. The apparatus of any of claims 20 to 22, wherein, when a recovery failure occurs at the UE and is related to access barring, the processing circuitry is further configured to: monitoring for paging signals on resources or configurations specified by a UE paging subgroup space associated with a subgroup ID of the UE previously allocated by the RAN or the CN.