CN114615206A

CN114615206A - Data transmission method, access network equipment, user plane functional network element and storage medium

Info

Publication number: CN114615206A
Application number: CN202011399795.XA
Authority: CN
Inventors: 景晓玺
Original assignee: ZTE Corp
Current assignee: ZTE Corp
Priority date: 2020-12-04
Filing date: 2020-12-04
Publication date: 2022-06-10
Also published as: WO2022116939A1

Abstract

The invention discloses a data transmission method, access network equipment, a user plane functional network element and a storage medium, wherein the method comprises the steps of determining a quality of service (QoS) flow corresponding to a delay sensitive network data packet and a delay requirement of the data packet; determining a target Data Radio Bearer (DRB) mapped by the QoS flow according to the time delay requirement; and sending the data packet to User Equipment (UE) through the target DRB. According to the scheme of the embodiment of the invention, the QoS flow corresponding to the data packet is classified according to the time delay requirement of the data packet, and is distributed to the proper DRB for scheduling, so that the purpose of scheduling and optimizing the data packet according to the time delay requirement is achieved, the transmission time delay of the data packet is ensured to meet the requirement of the maximum time delay of data, and the end-to-end deterministic transmission under a 5G system is realized.

Description

Data transmission method, access network equipment, user plane functional network element and storage medium

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a data transmission method, an access network device, a user plane functional network element, and a storage medium.

Background

The 3GPP protocol introduces a 5G system into a Time Sensitive Network (TSN) architecture, and the 5G system serves as a logical bridge node in the TSN, which can implement a data or packet forwarding function in the TSN.

Currently, a 5G system only supports mapping of a TSN packet to a 5G Quality of Service (QoS) stream, and a Data Radio Bearer (DRB) to be mapped by a QoS stream corresponding to the TSN packet can only be determined according to a 5G QoS indicator (5G QoS indicator, 5QI) associated with the QoS stream. Therefore, when the TSN low latency service and other delay insensitive services have the same QoS class, the opportunity that the TSN low latency service can be scheduled preferentially cannot be guaranteed, which causes the delay of the TSN low latency service at the wireless network side to jitter and uncertainty.

Disclosure of Invention

The following is a summary of the subject matter described in detail herein. This summary is not intended to limit the scope of the claims.

The embodiment of the invention provides a data transmission method, access network equipment, a user plane functional network element and a storage medium, so as to realize the deterministic transmission of TSN data in a 5G system.

In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a data transmission method, including:

determining a QoS (quality of service) flow corresponding to a TSN (traffic service) data packet and a time delay requirement of the data packet;

determining a target Data Radio Bearer (DRB) mapped by the QoS flow according to the time delay requirement;

and sending the data packet to User Equipment (UE) through the target DRB.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a data transmission method, including:

determining a QoS flow identifier corresponding to a data packet and timestamp information for transmitting the data packet according to forwarding strategy information of the data packet, wherein the timestamp information comprises a timestamp for receiving the data packet by UE and a timestamp for sending the data packet by a user plane function network element;

and sending the QoS flow identification corresponding to the data packet and timestamp information for transmitting the data packet to access network equipment, so that the access network equipment determines the QoS flow corresponding to the data packet according to the QoS flow identification and determines a target Data Radio Bearer (DRB) mapped by the QoS flow according to the timestamp information, and sends the data packet to UE (user equipment) through the target DRB.

In a third aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides an access network device, including: a memory, a processor and a computer program stored on the memory and executable on the processor, the processor implementing the data transmission method provided by the first aspect when executing the computer program.

In a fourth aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a user plane function network element, including: a memory, a processor and a computer program stored on the memory and executable on the processor, the processor implementing the data transmission method provided by the second aspect when executing the computer program.

In a fifth aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a computer-readable storage medium, which stores a computer program, and when the computer program is executed by a processor, the computer program implements the data transmission method described above.

The embodiment of the invention comprises the following steps: determining a QoS flow corresponding to a data packet and a time delay requirement of the data packet; determining a target Data Radio Bearer (DRB) mapped by the QoS flow according to the time delay requirement; and sending the data packet to User Equipment (UE) through the target DRB. According to the scheme of the embodiment of the invention, the QoS flow corresponding to the data packet is classified according to the time delay requirement of the data packet, and is distributed to the proper DRB for scheduling, so that the purpose of scheduling and optimizing the data packet according to the time delay requirement is achieved, the transmission time delay of the data packet is ensured to meet the requirement of the maximum time delay of data, and the end-to-end deterministic transmission under a 5G system is realized.

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by the structure particularly pointed out in the written description and claims hereof as well as the appended drawings.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the example serve to explain the principles of the invention and not to limit the invention.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a network architecture for merging a 5G system with a TSN system;

fig. 2 is a flowchart of a data transmission method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating the sub-steps of step S120 in FIG. 2;

fig. 4 is a flowchart of another data transmission method provided in the embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 5a to 5c are schematic diagrams of scheduling strategies for data packets according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 6 is a flowchart of another data transmission method provided in the embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of an access network device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of a user plane functional network element according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention more apparent, the present invention is further described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and embodiments. It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are merely illustrative of the invention and are not intended to limit the invention.

It should be understood that in the description of the embodiments of the present invention, if there is any description of "first", "second", etc., it is only for the purpose of distinguishing technical features, and it is not to be understood as indicating or implying relative importance or implicitly indicating the number of indicated technical features or implicitly indicating the precedence of the indicated technical features. "at least one" means one or more, "a plurality" means two or more. "and/or" describes the association relationship of the associated objects, and means that there may be three relationships, for example, a and/or B, and may mean that a exists alone, a and B exist simultaneously, and B exists alone. Wherein A and B can be singular or plural. The character "/" generally indicates that the former and latter associated objects are in an "or" relationship. "at least one of the following" and similar expressions refer to any combination of these items, including any combination of singular or plural items. For example, at least one of a, b, and c may represent: a, b, c, a and b, a and c, b and c or a and b and c, wherein a, b and c can be single or multiple.

In addition, the technical features involved in the embodiments of the present invention described below may be combined with each other as long as they do not conflict with each other.

For ease of understanding, an application scenario of the embodiment of the present invention is first described.

Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a network architecture for merging a 5G system with a TSN system. As shown in fig. 1, in the network architecture, a 5G system as a logical bridge node in a TSN network can implement a data or packet forwarding function in the TSN. When a data packet in a TSN system (A) reaches a 5G Network, the RAN needs to allocate a proper DRB for data scheduling transmission, but the RAN cannot acquire time stamp information of the TSN data packet, so that the RAN can allocate the DRB only according to 5QI, scheduling optimization cannot be performed according to a delay requirement of the data packet, and when the TSN low-delay service and other delay insensitive services have the same QoS (quality of service) grade, the opportunity that the TSN low-delay service can be scheduled preferentially cannot be ensured, so that delay of the TSN low-delay service at a wireless Network side is jittered, and uncertainty exists.

The access network device according to the embodiment of the present invention refers to a RAN node (or device) that accesses a UE to a wireless network, and may also be referred to as a base station. Illustratively, the RAN device may be a continuously evolved Node B (gnb), a Transmission Reception Point (TRP), an evolved Node B (eNB), a Radio Network Controller (RNC), a Node B (NB), a Base Station Controller (BSC), a Base Transceiver Station (BTS), a home base station (e.g., home evolved Node B, or home Node B, HNB), a Base Band Unit (BBU), or a wireless fidelity (Wifi) Access Point (AP), etc. In addition, in a network structure, the access network device may include a Centralized Unit (CU) node, or a Distributed Unit (DU) node, or a RAN device including a CU node and a DU node. The RAN device including the CU node and the DU node splits a protocol layer of an eNB in a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, puts functions of part of the protocol layer in CU centralized control, distributes functions of the remaining part or all of the protocol layer in the DU, and centrally controls the DU by the CU.

The UE related to the embodiment of the invention comprises handheld equipment, vehicle-mounted equipment, wearable equipment or computing equipment with a wireless communication function. Illustratively, the UE may be a mobile phone (mobile phone), a tablet computer, or a computer with wireless transceiving function. The UE may also be a Virtual Reality (VR) terminal device, an Augmented Reality (AR) terminal device, a wireless terminal in industrial control, a wireless terminal in unmanned driving, a wireless terminal in telemedicine, a wireless terminal in smart grid, a wireless terminal in smart city (smart city), a wireless terminal in smart home (smart home), and so on.

Referring to fig. 2, a data transmission method provided by an embodiment of the present invention is shown. The data transmission method shown in fig. 2 may be performed by an access network device (RAN), which may also be referred to as a base station, in the network architecture shown in fig. 1. As shown in fig. 2, the method includes, but is not limited to, the following steps.

Step S110, determining a QoS flow corresponding to the data packet and a delay requirement of the data packet.

As an example, the QoS flow corresponding to the packet may be determined according to the QoS flow identifier corresponding to the packet received from the user plane function network element. The user plane function network element herein may refer to a UPF network element in the TSN network architecture shown in fig. 1, and when the data transmission method according to the embodiment of the present invention is applied to the TSN network architecture shown in fig. 1, the data packet may also be referred to as a TSN data packet.

It is understood that, although the TSN system is not illustrated in fig. 1, in practical applications, the TSN system (a) may include a Centralized Network Configuration (CNC) network element and a Centralized User Configuration (CUC) network element. After receiving a TSN data packet creation request sent by a data terminal, a CUC network element requests a CNC network element to create a TSN data packet, the CNC network element calculates a time stamp for receiving the TSN data packet and a time stamp for sending the data packet of each switching node on a TSN data packet forwarding path according to the sending time delay and the internal processing time delay of each switching node (also called a bridge node), generates forwarding strategy information of each switching node, and sends corresponding forwarding strategy information to each switching node, so that the designated TSN data packet is received and sent in a determined time on each switching node, and the time for transmitting the data packet on the whole forwarding path are ensured to be determined.

In a possible implementation manner, the CNC network element sends the forwarding policy information of the TSN packet to the UPF network element, and the UPF network element determines the QoS stream identifier corresponding to the TSN packet according to the received forwarding policy information. Specifically, the forwarding policy information includes a port identifier for transmitting the TSN packet, and the UPF network element may determine, according to the port identifier for transmitting the TSN packet, a PDU session corresponding to the TSN packet, and then determine, from the QoS stream corresponding to the PDU session, the QoS stream corresponding to the TSN packet. For example, the forwarding policy information includes flow information of the TSN packet, where the flow information includes a destination MAC address of the TSN packet, and the UPF network element screens out a QoS flow having the same destination MAC address from existing QoS flows corresponding to the PDU session according to the destination MAC address of the TSN packet, and uses the QoS flow as a QoS flow corresponding to the TSN packet. It should be understood that, the above is only an example of how to determine the QoS flow identifier corresponding to the TSN packet, and other manners may also be used to determine the QoS flow corresponding to the TSN packet in specific implementation, which is not limited in this embodiment of the present invention.

As an example, the latency requirement of the data packet may be determined from timestamp information received from the UPF network element. The time stamp information here indicates time stamp information of the transmission packet. Specifically, the time stamp information includes a time stamp of a transmission data packet and a time stamp of a reception data packet. Wherein, the timestamp of the transmission data packet refers to the timestamp of the UPF port transmission data packet, and is denoted by T0 for convenience of description; the timestamp of the received packet refers to the timestamp of the packet calculated by the UE port, and is denoted as T1 for convenience of description.

For ease of description, the delay requirement of a packet is denoted by Δ T1. The delay requirement Δ T1 of the data packet can be obtained by subtracting the timestamp T1 of the data packet received by the UE from the timestamp T0 of the data packet sent by the UPF, that is: Δ T1 ═ T1-T0. The Δ T1 is used to indicate the maximum transmission delay of the packet at the switching node, i.e. the allowed transmission delay of the packet from the UPF to the UE.

Step S120, according to the delay requirement, determining a target DRB mapped by the QoS flow corresponding to the data packet.

In the embodiment of the invention, the QoS flow corresponding to the data packet is classified according to the time delay requirement of the data packet, and then the proper DRB is distributed to the QoS flow according to the classification to transmit the data packet. Step S120 may be implemented by the following sub-steps shown in fig. 3.

Step S121, according to the time delay requirement, determining the time delay requirement interval to which the QoS flow corresponding to the data packet belongs.

The QoS flow corresponding to the data packet is the QoS flow acted by the TSN data packet, so the QoS flow should be limited by the delay requirement of the TSN data packet, and the deterministic transmission is performed within the maximum transmission delay Δ T1. In order to enable the transmission of the QoS stream to meet the delay requirement of the TSN packet, a plurality of delay requirement intervals may be preset in the base station during specific implementation, and each delay interval has a corresponding numerical range. After the delay requirement Δ T1 of the TSN packet is determined, it can be directly determined within the numerical range of which delay requirement interval the Δ T1 is located, so as to determine the delay requirement interval to which the QoS flow corresponding to the TSN packet belongs. It should be noted that, for the value range of each time delay requirement interval, the embodiment of the present invention is not specifically limited.

Step S122, obtaining a mapping relationship between the delay requirement interval and the DRB, and determining the DRB matched with the delay requirement interval to which the QoS flow belongs as a target DRB.

As an example, a mapping relationship between the delay requirement intervals and the DRBs may be pre-established in the base station, where each DRB corresponds to one delay requirement interval. For example, DRB #1 corresponds to the QoS flow of the delay requirement interval #1, DRB #2 corresponds to the QoS flow of the delay requirement interval #2, and DRB #3 corresponds to the QoS flow of the delay requirement interval # 3. It can be understood that DRBs corresponding to different latency requirement intervals have different transmission capabilities, for example, DRB #1 has the maximum data transmission rate and can be used for transmitting data packets of low latency services; DRB #2 has medium data transmission rate and can be used for transmitting data packets of medium-delay service; the data transmission rate of DRB #3 is the lowest, and can be used to transmit data packets of a service that is not sensitive to delay. Thus, different transmission delay requirements of the QoS flow are met through different DRBs.

In a specific implementation, according to the delay requirement interval to which the QoS flow belongs determined in step S121, a DRB matching the delay requirement interval is determined from the established DRBs, it can be understood that each delay requirement interval may have one or more corresponding DRBs, and when there are a plurality of DRBs matching the delay requirement interval, one DRB is selected from the plurality of DRBs determined as a target DRB corresponding to the QoS flow.

Step S123, map the QoS flow to the target DRB.

After the target DRB is determined, the QoS flow is mapped to the target DRB so as to transmit the data packet through the target DRB.

Step S130, the data packet is sent to the UE through the target DRB.

And after the target DRB is determined, sending the data packet to the UE through the target DRB. It can be understood that DRBs are bearers established between the base station and the UE, and one DRB corresponds to one UE, so that the UE corresponding to a data packet can be determined as long as a target DRB is determined.

Optionally, before step S110, determining a UE corresponding to the data packet is further included. For example, the base station may determine the UE corresponding to the data packet according to the received UE identifier sent by the UPF network element. The UPF network element can determine the UE identification corresponding to the data packet by determining the PDU session corresponding to the data packet, and then sends the UE identification to the base station.

According to the scheme of the embodiment of the invention, the QoS flow corresponding to the data packet is classified according to the time delay requirement of the data packet, and is distributed to the proper DRB for scheduling, so that the purpose of scheduling and optimizing the data packet according to the time delay requirement is achieved, the transmission time delay of the data packet is ensured to meet the requirement of the maximum time delay of data, and the end-to-end deterministic transmission under a 5G system is realized.

Referring to fig. 4, a data transmission method according to an embodiment of the present invention is shown. The data transmission method shown in fig. 4 may be performed by an access network device (RAN), which may also be referred to as a base station, in the network architecture shown in fig. 1. As shown in fig. 4, the method includes, but is not limited to, the following steps.

Step S210, determining a QoS flow corresponding to the data packet and a delay requirement of the data packet.

Step S220, according to the delay requirement, determining the target data radio bearer DRB mapped by the QoS flow.

Here, for the specific implementation process of step S210 to step S220, reference may be made to the detailed description of step S110 to step S120, and details are not described here again.

In step S230, the delay margin of the data packet is determined.

It is understood that the delay margin of the data packet indicates the transmission delay between the RAN (i.e., the base station) and the UE, and for convenience of description, the delay margin of the data packet is denoted by Δ T2. The delay margin Δ T2 may be obtained as follows:

acquiring a timestamp of the access network device for receiving the data packet, wherein for convenience of description, the timestamp of the access network device for receiving the data packet is denoted by T2; when the base station receives the data packet, recording the time stamp of the data packet, thus obtaining T2;

subtracting the timestamp T1 of the data packet received by the UE from the timestamp T2 of the data packet received by the access network device to obtain a delay margin Δ T2 of the data packet, that is: Δ T2 ═ T1-T2.

Step S240, determining the scheduling priority of the data packet according to the delay margin.

In one possible implementation, the scheduling priority includes a high priority, a medium priority, and a low priority. Each scheduling priority corresponds to a delay margin value range. For example, the delay margin value range corresponding to the high priority is smaller than a first threshold, the delay margin value range corresponding to the medium priority is greater than or equal to the first threshold and smaller than a second threshold, and the delay margin value range corresponding to the low priority is greater than or equal to the second threshold. Thus, the scheduling priority of the data packet can be determined by judging which delay margin value range the delay margin Δ T2 is located in, specifically, when the delay margin is smaller than the first threshold, the scheduling priority of the data packet is determined to be a high priority; when the delay allowance is larger than or equal to a first threshold and smaller than a second threshold, determining the scheduling priority of the data packet as a medium priority; and when the delay allowance is larger than or equal to a second threshold, determining the scheduling priority of the data packet as the low priority. It is to be understood that the scheduling priority in the embodiment of the present invention is not limited to the high priority, the medium priority and the low priority, and more priorities may be divided in practical applications, which is not limited in the embodiment of the present invention.

In the embodiment of the invention, the base station determines the delay allowance of the data packet according to the timestamp of the actually received data packet, and further determines the scheduling priority of the data packet according to the delay allowance so as to optimize the scheduling of the data packet according to the actual delay, avoid the jitter of the delay of the low-delay service at the wireless network side, and ensure that the 5G system can realize the deterministic transmission from end to end within the range of the delay requirement delta T1.

Step S250, according to the scheduling strategy corresponding to the scheduling priority, the data packet is sent to the UE through the target DRB.

It can be understood that, after determining the target DRB for transmitting the data packet, the base station normally queues the data packet into the QoS queue corresponding to the target DRB, and temporarily stores the data packet in the buffer in the form of a queue for scheduling, and it can be understood that there may be a plurality of QoS queues corresponding to each DRB. The data packets in the QoS queue are usually queued according to a first-in first-out principle, and dequeued sequentially from front to back, that is, the data packet queued at the head will be dequeued before the data packet queued at the back. When the data packet is dequeued from the QoS queue, the data packet enters a DRB queue and is transmitted to the UE through the DRB.

The embodiment of the invention expresses the urgency degree of data packet scheduling through the priority, and the base station adopts different scheduling strategies for the data packets with different scheduling priorities so as to achieve the aim of optimizing the scheduling of the data packets according to the actual time delay.

For example, when the scheduling priority is determined to be a high priority, the data packet may be directly scheduled to a target DRB queue, and the data packet may be sent to the UE through the target DRB.

It can be understood that if the scheduling priority of the packet is high, it indicates that the delay margin of the packet is small, and it needs to be scheduled urgently. For the data packet with high priority, the embodiment of the invention adopts the strategy of directly placing the data packet in the target DRB queue, namely the data packet with high priority skips the buffer flow originally queued in the QoS queue and directly enters the target DRB queue. Therefore, the data packet with high priority is immediately transmitted to the UE through the DRB, and the service data with low time delay can be ensured to be transmitted deterministically within the time delay requirement.

In a specific implementation process, the ordering of the data packets in the target DRB queue may be determined according to the delay margin. It should be understood that the earlier the data packets in the DRB queue arrive at the UE.

For example, the delay margin of the currently scheduled data packet may be compared with the delay margin of the data packet already existing in the target DRB queue, and if the data packet already existing in the target DRB queue has a data packet smaller than the delay margin of the currently scheduled data packet, the currently scheduled data packet may be arranged at a position after the data packet with the smaller delay margin; and if no data packet which is less than the delay quantity of the currently scheduled data packet exists in the data packets of the target DRB queue, the currently scheduled data packet is arranged at the head of the target DRB queue.

As an example, when the scheduling priority is determined to be a medium priority, the ordering of the data packets in the QoS queue is adjusted so that the data packets are arranged before all the low priority data packets; and dequeuing the QoS queue to enter the target DRB, and sending the data packet to the UE through the target DRB.

It can be understood that if the scheduling priority of the packet is a medium priority, it means that the latency margin of the packet is small, and the scheduling is more urgent. For a medium priority data packet, the embodiment of the present invention adopts a policy of adjusting the order of the data packet in the QoS queue forward, so that the medium priority data packet is arranged before all the low priority data packets. It should be appreciated that the earlier the data packets are ordered in the QoS queue, the faster they can be dequeued into the target DRB and then transmitted to the UE through the target DRB.

In a specific implementation process, the delay margins of the currently adjusted data packet and other data packets in the same QoS queue can be compared, and if other data packets smaller than the delay margin of the currently adjusted data packet exist, the currently adjusted data packet is arranged behind the data packet smaller than the delay margin; and if no data packet smaller than the delay allowance of the currently adjusted data packet exists, the currently adjusted data packet is arranged to the first position of the QoS queue. Therefore, the data packets with the medium priority are not queued according to the original first-in first-out principle, but are scheduled more quickly by adopting an interpolation queue mode so as to meet the delay requirement of the data packets with the medium priority.

As an example, when the scheduling priority is determined to be low, the data packet is queued in the QoS queue normally, and is waiting to be scheduled into the target DRB queue for transmission. It is understood that if the scheduling priority of the packet is low, the delay margin of the packet is sufficient, and the scheduling urgency is normal. For the data packets with low priority, the embodiment of the invention does not perform special processing, and the data packets with low priority are normally queued in the QoS queue and wait for being scheduled to enter the target DRB queue for transmission.

For example, as shown in fig. 5a, if the scheduling priority of the packet P10 is determined to be high priority and it is determined that there is no packet smaller than the latency margin of the packet P10 in the target DRB (DRB #1), then P10 is placed directly at the head of the target DRB # 1; as shown in fig. 5b, if the scheduling priority of the data packet P10 is determined to be a medium priority, the QoS queue corresponding to P10 is QoS #1, and the delay margins of other data packets in QoS #1 are all greater than the delay margin of the data packet P10, then P10 is placed at the head of the QoS #1 queue; as shown in fig. 5c, if the scheduling priority of the packet P10 is determined to be low, no adjustment is made to the position of the P10 at QoS #1, and the packet is queued according to the first-in first-out principle.

According to the scheme of the embodiment of the invention, the scheduling priority of the data packet is determined according to the delay allowance of the data packet, and different scheduling strategies are adopted for the data packets with different scheduling priorities, so that the aim of optimizing the scheduling of the data packet according to the actual delay is fulfilled.

Referring to fig. 6, another data transmission method provided by the embodiment of the present invention is shown, where the data transmission method shown in fig. 6 can be executed by a UPF network element in the network architecture shown in fig. 1. As shown in fig. 6, the method includes, but is not limited to, the following steps.

S310, according to the forwarding strategy information of the data packet, determining a QoS flow identifier corresponding to the data packet and timestamp information of the transmission data packet, wherein the timestamp information comprises a timestamp of the UE for receiving the data packet and a timestamp of the UPF for sending the data packet.

Illustratively, the CNC network element sends the forwarding policy information of the TSN packet to the UPF network element, and the UPF network element determines the QoS flow identifier corresponding to the TSN packet according to the received forwarding policy information. Specifically, the forwarding policy information includes a port identifier for transmitting the TSN packet, and the UPF network element may determine, according to the port identifier for transmitting the TSN packet, a PDU session corresponding to the TSN packet, and then determine, from the QoS stream corresponding to the PDU session, the QoS stream corresponding to the TSN packet. For example, the forwarding policy information includes flow information of the TSN packet, where the flow information includes a destination MAC address of the TSN packet, and the UPF network element screens out a QoS flow having the same destination MAC address from existing QoS flows corresponding to the PDU session according to the destination MAC address of the TSN packet, and uses the QoS flow as a QoS flow corresponding to the TSN packet. It should be understood that, the above is only an example of how to determine the QoS flow identifier corresponding to the TSN packet, and other manners may also be used to determine the QoS flow corresponding to the TSN packet in specific implementation, which is not limited in this embodiment of the present invention.

Illustratively, the forwarding policy information includes timestamp information of the data packet, the timestamp information includes a timestamp of receiving the data packet and a timestamp of sending the data packet, and the timestamp of receiving the data packet refers to a timestamp of receiving the data packet by the UE port; the timestamp of the transmission data packet refers to the timestamp of the UPF port for transmitting the data packet.

S320, sending the QoS flow identification corresponding to the data packet and the timestamp information of the transmission data packet to the access network equipment, so that the access network equipment determines the QoS flow corresponding to the data packet according to the QoS flow identification and determines a target data radio bearer DRB mapped by the QoS flow according to the timestamp information, and sending the TSN data packet to the UE through the target DRB.

Optionally, the UPF network element determines, according to the forwarding policy information of the data packet, a UE identifier corresponding to the data packet; and sending the UE identification to the access network equipment.

Referring to fig. 7, an access network device according to an embodiment of the present invention is shown, including: a memory, a processor, and a computer program stored on the memory and executable on the processor.

The processor and memory may be connected by a bus or other means.

The memory, which is a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, may be used to store non-transitory software programs as well as non-transitory computer executable programs. Further, the memory may include high speed random access memory, and may also include non-transitory memory, such as at least one disk storage device, flash memory device, or other non-transitory solid state storage device. In some embodiments, the memory optionally includes memory located remotely from the processor, and these remote memories may be connected to the processor through a network. Examples of such networks include, but are not limited to, the internet, intranets, local area networks, mobile communication networks, and combinations thereof.

It should be noted that the access network device in this embodiment may be applied to a RAN in a network architecture shown in fig. 1.

The non-transitory software programs and instructions required to implement the data transmission method of the above-described embodiments are stored in a memory, and when executed by a processor, perform the data transmission method of the above-described embodiments, for example, perform the steps of the embodiments shown in fig. 2 or fig. 4.

Referring to fig. 8, a user plane function network element provided in an embodiment of the present invention is shown, including: memory, a processor, and a computer program stored on the memory and executable on the processor.

The processor and memory may be connected by a bus or other means.

It should be noted that the user plane function network element in this embodiment may be applied to a UPF network element in a network architecture shown in fig. 1.

The non-transitory software programs and instructions required to implement the data transmission method of the above-described embodiment are stored in a memory, and when executed by a processor, perform the data transmission method of the above-described embodiment, for example, perform the steps of the embodiment shown in fig. 6.

The above-described embodiments of the apparatus are merely illustrative, wherein the units illustrated as separate components may or may not be physically separate, i.e. may be located in one place, or may also be distributed over a plurality of network elements. Some or all of the modules may be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of this embodiment.

Furthermore, an embodiment of the present invention also provides a computer-readable storage medium, which stores computer-executable instructions, which are executed by a processor or a controller, for example, by a processor in the above-mentioned access network equipment embodiment, and can make the processor execute the data transmission method in the above-mentioned embodiment, for example, execute the steps in the above-mentioned embodiment shown in fig. 2 or fig. 4. Alternatively, the execution by a processor in the above-mentioned user plane function network element embodiment may cause the above-mentioned processor to execute the data transmission method in the above-mentioned embodiment, for example, to execute the steps in the above-described embodiment shown in fig. 6.

One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that all or some of the steps, systems, and methods disclosed above may be implemented as software, firmware, hardware, and suitable combinations thereof. Some or all of the physical components may be implemented as software executed by a processor, such as a central processing unit, digital signal processor, or microprocessor, or as hardware, or as an integrated circuit, such as an application specific integrated circuit. Such software may be distributed on computer readable media, which may include computer storage media (or non-transitory media) and communication media (or transitory media). The term computer storage media includes volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data, as is well known to those of ordinary skill in the art. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, Digital Versatile Disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can accessed by a computer. In addition, communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media as known to those skilled in the art.

While the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that the foregoing and various other changes, omissions and deviations in the form and detail thereof may be made without departing from the scope of this invention.

Claims

1. A method of data transmission, comprising:

determining a QoS flow corresponding to a data packet and a time delay requirement of the data packet;

and sending the data packet to User Equipment (UE) through the target DRB.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining the target Data Radio Bearer (DRB) to which the QoS flow is mapped according to the latency requirement comprises:

determining a time delay requirement interval to which the QoS flow belongs according to the time delay requirement;

acquiring a mapping relation between the delay requirement interval and the DRB, and determining the DRB matched with the delay requirement interval to which the QoS flow belongs as the target DRB;

mapping the QoS flow to the target DRB.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said sending the data packet to a User Equipment (UE) via the target DRB comprises:

determining a delay margin of the data packet;

determining the scheduling priority of the data packet according to the delay allowance;

and sending the data packet to the UE through the target DRB according to the scheduling strategy corresponding to the scheduling priority.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein determining the scheduling priority of the data packet according to the delay margin comprises:

when the delay allowance is smaller than a first threshold, determining the scheduling priority of the data packet as a high priority;

the sending the data packet to the UE through the target DRB according to the scheduling policy corresponding to the scheduling priority includes:

when the scheduling priority is determined to be high, directly scheduling the data packet to a target DRB queue, and sending the data packet to User Equipment (UE) through the target DRB;

and determining the sequence of the data packet in the target DRB queue according to the delay margin.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the determining the scheduling priority of the data packet according to the delay margin comprises:

when the delay allowance is larger than or equal to a first threshold and smaller than a second threshold, determining the scheduling priority of the data packet as a medium priority;

when the scheduling priority is determined to be a medium priority, adjusting the sequence of the data packets in a QoS queue to make the data packets be arranged in front of all low-priority data packets, wherein the delay allowance of the low-priority data packets is larger than or equal to the second threshold;

and when the data packet is dequeued from the QoS queue and enters the target DRB, sending the data packet to the UE through the target DRB.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the determining the QoS flow corresponding to the delay-sensitive network packet and the delay requirement of the packet comprises:

receiving a QoS flow identifier corresponding to the data packet from a user plane function network element and timestamp information for transmitting the data packet, wherein the timestamp information comprises a timestamp for receiving the data packet by the UE and a timestamp for sending the data packet by the user plane function network element;

determining the QoS flow corresponding to the data packet according to the QoS flow identification;

and obtaining the time delay requirement of the data packet according to the time stamp of the data packet received by the UE and the time stamp of the data packet sent by the user plane functional network element.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein determining the latency margin of the data packet comprises:

acquiring a timestamp of the access network equipment for receiving the data packet;

and obtaining the delay allowance of the data packet according to the timestamp of the UE for receiving the data packet and the timestamp of the access network equipment for receiving the data packet.

8. A method of data transmission, comprising:

9. An access network device, comprising: memory, processor and computer program stored on the memory and executable on the processor, which when executed by the processor implements a data transmission method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 7.

10. A user plane function network element, comprising: memory, processor and computer program stored on the memory and executable on the processor, which when executed by the processor implements the data transmission method according to claim 8.

11. A computer-readable storage medium, in which a computer program is stored which, when being executed by a processor, carries out the data transmission method according to one of claims 1 to 7 or the data transmission method according to claim 8.