CN116746245A

CN116746245A - Beam training method and device and communication equipment

Info

Publication number: CN116746245A
Application number: CN202080108221.4A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 张荻; 刘鹍鹏
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2020-12-30
Filing date: 2020-12-30
Publication date: 2023-09-12
Also published as: WO2022141205A1

Abstract

The application discloses a beam training method, a device and communication equipment, and relates to the technical field of communication, wherein when the beam training method is executed, first communication equipment can acquire first vector information, and the first information is determined according to the first vector information and the association relation between the first vector information and first information of a second cell; the first information is first reference signal resource information or first information is first transmission configuration indication state TCI state information; and if the first information is the first reference signal resource information, receiving the first reference signal on the first reference signal resource, or if the first information is the first TCI state information, receiving a downlink physical channel according to the first TCI state information. By adopting the mode for carrying out beam training, the interaction of signaling can be reduced, and the efficiency of beam training is improved.

Description

Beam training method and device and communication equipment

Technical Field

The present application relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a beam training method, a device, and a communications device.

Background

In order to increase the capacity of users and the communication rate of terminal devices in a communication system, a new air interface (NR) system of a fifth generation mobile communication technology (5th generation mobile networks,5G) introduces a millimeter wave spectrum. Although the bandwidth of the millimeter wave spectrum is large, the signal attenuation is large during transmission. In order to solve the problem of large attenuation of millimeter wave signals, a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) technology is introduced to improve the gain of the signals. The gain of millimeter wave signals can be improved through MIMO, and the loss of the signals is reduced. However, the signals do not have a designated direction in the transmission process, the matching degree between multiple antennas is low, and mutual interference is easy to occur between the signals. Beamforming has been developed in order to transmit beams with directivity.

Because the measurement capability of the terminal device is limited when the beam training is performed, not only all beams cannot be measured in the process of one-time beam measurement and reporting, but also the network device needs to reconfigure signaling for a plurality of times to switch the beam set required by the beam training.

Disclosure of Invention

The application provides a beam training method, a device and communication equipment, which are used for reducing signaling overhead during beam training and improving the beam training efficiency.

In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a beam training method, where the method may be applied to a first communication device, and when the method is specifically executed, the first communication device may send first vector information, where the first vector information is determined by measuring a first cell; determining first information according to the first vector information and the association relation between the first vector information and the first information of the second cell; the first information is first reference signal resource information, or the first information is first transmission configuration indication (transmission configuration indicator, TCI) state (state) information; and if the first information is the first reference signal resource information, receiving the first reference signal on the first reference signal resource indicated by the first reference signal resource information, or if the first information is the first TCI state information, receiving the downlink physical channel according to the first TCI state information.

It should be noted that, the first communication device may obtain the first vector information by measuring a downlink reference signal resource of the first cell, where the downlink reference signal resource may be a channel state information reference signal (channel state information reference signal, CSI-RS) or a synchronization signal broadcast channel block (synchronous signal block, SSB), etc. The first communication device may also obtain the first vector information by measuring an uplink reference signal resource of the first cell, which may be a sounding reference signal (sounding reference signal, SRS), etc.

In addition, it should be further noted that the vector information of the first cell may include a plurality of relations, and in actual application, the relations between a plurality of vector information in the vector information of the first cell and a plurality of reference signal resource information of the second cell or between a plurality of vector information in the vector information of the first cell and a plurality of TCI state information of the second cell may be configured according to service requirements. Wherein the vector information of the first cell may be configured by the second communication device (e.g., a network device). In addition, the association relationship may include a plurality of association relationships, wherein one association relationship is an association relationship between the first vector information and the first information of the second cell. When the scheme of the application is applied, after the first communication equipment measures the first cell to obtain the first vector information, the first information is determined through the association relation between the first vector information and the first information of the second cell. It should be understood that the association between the plurality of vector information and the plurality of reference signal resource information, or the association between the plurality of vector information and the plurality of TCI state information may be a one-to-one association, a many-to-one association, or a many-to-many association, which is not limited in the present application.

Through the association relationship, the first communication device may determine the first information with reference to the vector information of the first cell. The first communication device measures the first cell to obtain first vector information, wherein the first vector information is one or more of the vector information of the first cell in the present application, and then the first information associated with the first vector information can be obtained according to the first vector information (i.e. the first information can be determined by referring to the first vector information).

In the embodiment of the application, after the first communication device acquires the first vector information, the first information can be determined according to the first vector information and the association relation between the first vector information and the first information of the second cell, without receiving the first information from other communication devices, so that the interaction of signaling is reduced. In addition, the first communication device, after determining the first information, may receive the first reference signal on a first reference signal resource associated with the first vector information or receive a downlink physical channel according to first TCI state information associated with the first vector information. According to the method, other communication equipment is not required to instruct the first communication equipment to adopt which reference resources are adopted to receive the first reference signal or which TCI state information is adopted to receive the downlink physical channel, the interaction of signaling is reduced, the signaling resources are saved, and in addition, the efficiency of beam training is improved while the signaling interaction is reduced.

In an alternative way, the frequency point of the first cell is lower than the frequency point of the second cell.

It should be noted that, because the low frequency coverage is better, the first communication device may receive the Reference Signal (RS) transmitted in omni-direction or the RS transmitted in wide beam, and the high frequency path loss is larger, and the better narrow beam is obtained by using the narrow beam scanning mode in a larger angle range to perform communication. The high frequency narrow beam scanning process introduces a large resource overhead and time delay.

However, by the present application, the first communication device may obtain a smaller search range of the high frequency (second cell) narrow beam based on the vector measurement result of the low frequency (first cell), which may reduce the resource overhead of the high frequency beam training.

In an alternative way, the association is determined by: receiving configuration information from a second communication device; the configuration information indicates an association relationship; or determining the association relation according to the channel quality of the first cell measured by the first communication equipment.

In an alternative manner, the first vector information is precoding matrix indication (precoding matrix indication, PMI) information, or the first vector information indicates L column vectors in an R column matrix corresponding to the PMI information, or the first vector information is identification information of an oversampled discrete fourier transform (discrete fourier transform, DFT) vector; wherein R, L is a positive integer, and R is greater than or equal to L.

It should be noted that, in the prior art, the network device needs to configure a reference signal resource set for high-frequency beam scanning, for example: 64 reference signal resources are configured for beam training. By activating the associated reference signal resource of the first vector information, the application avoids the signaling interaction of the reconfiguration of the reference signal resource and reduces the training time delay of the high-frequency wave beam.

In an alternative way, the first TCI state information is mapped onto the code point of the first field of the downlink control information (downlink control information, DCI) in sequence; the first field is used to indicate the TCI state of the downlink physical channel.

It should be noted that the "first TCI state information" may be replaced with "index of TCI state".

For example, the first TCI state information (index of TCI state) of the second cell associated with the first vector information is 0, 3, 5, 7, wherein mapping the first TCI state information to the code point of the first field of DCI (assuming that the code point is 2 bits) in order from small to large may be understood that index 0 is mapped to code point 00, index 3 is mapped to code point 01, index 5 is mapped to code point 10, and index 7 is mapped to code point 11.

In the prior art, the network device needs to refresh the TCI state list of the physical downlink shared channel (physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH) or the physical downlink control channel (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH) through the medium access layer control unit (medium access controlcontrol element, MAC CE) based on the measurement result fed back by the terminal device. In the application, the first communication equipment directly activates the TCI state associated with the first vector information, omits signaling interaction of TCI state list reconfiguration, and reduces beam indication time delay.

In an alternative manner, the first TCI state information is TCI state candidate list information of the downlink physical channel.

It should be noted that, the "the first TCI state information is the TCI state candidate list information of the downlink physical channel" may be understood that the first TCI state information indicates the TCI state candidate list of the downlink physical channel.

For example, the TCI state candidate list of the downlink physical channel of the second cell associated with the first vector information includes a plurality of TCI states, and the first communication device may select one or more TCI states in the TCI state candidate list of the downlink physical channel of the second cell to receive the downlink physical channel when actually applied.

In the prior art, the network device needs to refresh the TCI state list of the PDSCH or PDCCH through the MAC CE based on the measurement result fed back by the terminal device. In the application, the first communication equipment directly activates the TCI state associated with the first vector information, so that signaling interaction of TCI state list reconfiguration is omitted, and beam indication time delay is reduced.

In an alternative manner, the configuration information indicates that the first vector information is quasi co-location (QCL) information of the first reference signal resource information.

In the prior art, when the beam is trained, the first communication device directly scans the high-frequency beam, which requires a large resource overhead and a large time delay. However, according to the present application, the first communication device may perform beam scanning (i.e. measure the first reference signal resource) of the high frequency (the second cell) based on the vector measurement result (the first vector information) of the low frequency (the first cell), which may reduce the resource overhead and the time delay of the high frequency beam training.

In an alternative manner, the first reference signal resource information is reference signal resource information for beam management.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a beam training method, where the method may be applied to a second communication device, and the second communication device may receive first vector information when specifically executed; determining first information according to the first vector information and the association relation between the first vector information and the first information of the second cell; the first information is first reference signal resource information or first information is first TCI state information; and if the first information is the first reference signal resource information, transmitting the first reference signal on the first reference resource indicated by the first reference signal resource information, or if the first information is the first TCI state information, transmitting the downlink physical channel according to the first TCI state information.

In the embodiment of the application, after the second communication device acquires the first vector information, the first information can be determined according to the first vector information and the association relation between the first vector information and the first information, without continuously reconfiguring signaling, so that the interaction of the signaling is reduced.

In the application, the second communication device can obtain a smaller searching range of the high-frequency (second cell) narrow beam based on the vector measurement result of the low-frequency (first cell), and the method can reduce the resource overhead of high-frequency beam training.

In an alternative way, the association is determined by: receiving second information from the first communication device; the second information indicates that the association relation exists; or determining an association relation; the association is carried in the configuration information.

In an optional manner, the first vector information is PMI information, or the first vector information indicates an L column vector in an R column matrix corresponding to the PMI information, or the first vector information is identification information of an oversampled DFT vector; wherein R, L is a positive integer, R is greater than or equal to L.

In an alternative manner, the first information is first reference signal resource information; the second communication device activates the first reference signal resource.

In an alternative manner, the second communication device determines the first TCI state information according to the first reference signal resource; and activating the TCI state corresponding to the first TCI state information.

In an alternative way, the configuration information indicates that the first vector information is quasi co-located QCL information of the first reference signal resource information.

In an alternative manner, the first information is first TCI state information; the second communication device activates the TCI state corresponding to the first TCI state information.

In an alternative manner, the first TCI state information is mapped to the code point of the first field of the DCI in sequence; the first field is used to indicate the TCI state of the downlink physical channel.

It should be noted that, in the prior art, the network device needs to refresh the active TCI state list of the PDSCH through the MAC CE based on the measurement feedback result of the terminal device. By directly activating the TCI state associated with the first vector information, the application omits signaling interaction of TCI state list reconfiguration and reduces beam indication time delay.

In a third aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a beam training apparatus, including:

a transceiver unit, configured to transmit first vector information, where the first vector information is determined by measuring a first cell;

a processing unit, configured to determine first information according to the first vector information, an association relationship between the first vector information and first information of a second cell; the first information is first reference signal resource information or first TCI state information; if the first information is the first reference signal resource information, receiving a first reference signal on a first reference signal resource indicated by the first reference signal resource information; or if the first information is the first TCI state information, receiving a downlink physical channel according to the first TCI state information.

In an alternative way, the association is determined by: receiving configuration information from a second communication device; the configuration information indicates the association relation; or determining the association relation according to the channel quality of the first cell measured by the first communication equipment.

In an optional manner, the first vector information is PMI information, or the first vector information indicates an L column vector in an R column matrix corresponding to the PMI information, or the first vector information is identification information of an oversampled discrete fourier transform DFT vector; wherein R, L is a positive integer, R is greater than or equal to L.

In an alternative manner, the configuration information is QCL information indicating that the first vector information is first reference signal resource information.

In a fourth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a beam training apparatus, including:

a transceiver unit for receiving the first vector information; a processing unit, configured to determine first information according to the first vector information, an association relationship between the first vector information and first information of a second cell; the first information is first reference signal resource information or transmission configuration indication state first TCI state information; if the first information is the first reference signal resource information, a first reference signal is sent on a first reference signal resource indicated by the first reference signal resource information; or if the first information is the first TCI state information, sending a downlink physical channel according to the first TCI state information.

In an alternative way, the association is determined by: receiving second information from the first communication device; the second information indicates the association relation; or determining the association relation; the association is carried in configuration information.

In an alternative manner, the first information is first reference signal resource information; the processing unit is further configured to activate the first reference signal resource.

In an alternative manner, the processing unit is further configured to determine the first TCI state information according to the first reference signal resource; and activating the TCI state corresponding to the first TCI state information.

In an alternative manner, the first information is first TCI state information; the processing unit is further configured to activate a TCI state corresponding to the first TCI state information.

In a fifth aspect, the present application provides a communication device comprising a processor and a memory; the memory is for storing computer-executable instructions which, when the apparatus is run, the processor executes the computer-executable instructions stored by the memory to cause the apparatus to perform a method as described above for the first aspect or embodiments of the first aspect or the second aspect or embodiments of the second aspect.

In a sixth aspect, embodiments of the present application also provide a computer readable storage medium having stored therein computer readable instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform a method as in the first aspect or embodiments of the first aspect or the second aspect or embodiments of the second aspect.

In a seventh aspect, the application provides a computer program product comprising instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform the method of the first aspect or embodiments of the first aspect or the method of the second aspect or embodiments of the second aspect described above.

In an eighth aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a chip system, where the chip system includes a processor and may further include a memory, where the processor is configured to implement the method of the first aspect or the embodiments of the first aspect or the method of the second aspect or the embodiments of the second aspect. The chip system may be formed of a chip or may include a chip and other discrete devices.

In a ninth aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a communication system, the system comprising a terminal device and a network device, the terminal device being configured to perform the method of the first aspect or the embodiments of the first aspect or the method of the second aspect or the embodiments of the second aspect described above.

In a tenth aspect, there is provided a computer program product comprising instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform the method of the first aspect or embodiments of the first aspect or the method of the second aspect or embodiments of the second aspect described above.

The technical effects achieved by the second to tenth aspects are described with reference to the corresponding possible designs in the first aspect, and the description of the technical effects achieved by the second to tenth aspects is not repeated here.

Drawings

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

fig. 1B is a schematic diagram of a communication system according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 1C is a schematic structural diagram of a network element according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 2 is a schematic flow chart of a beam training method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of an application scenario of a beam training method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of an application scenario of a beam training method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of an application scenario of a beam training method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of an application scenario of a beam training method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of a beam training apparatus according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present application more apparent, the present application will be further described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. The specific method of operation in the method embodiment may also be applied to the device embodiment or the system embodiment. In the description of the present application, unless otherwise indicated, the meaning of "a plurality" is two or more.

However, in order to meet the coverage requirement, a large number of beam scans are required at high frequencies to obtain the beam directions in which the network device communicates with the terminal device, which consumes a large amount of resources and time.

In order to better illustrate the aspects of the application, the terms used in the present application are explained below:

communication apparatus: the present application is not limited herein, and the present application is not limited herein specifically, but may be a transmission beam of a network device and a reception beam of a terminal device, or a transmission beam of a terminal device and a reception beam of a network device, or a reception beam and a transmission beam between a network device and a network device, or a reception beam and a transmission beam between a terminal device and a terminal device.

Network equipment: is a node in the radio access network (radio access network, RAN), which may also be referred to as a base station, and which may also be referred to as a RAN node (or device). Currently, some access network devices are exemplified by: a gNB/NR-NB, a transmission reception point (transmission reception point, TRP), an evolved Node B (eNB), a radio network controller (radio network controller, RNC), a Node B (NB), a base station controller (base station controller, BSC), a base transceiver station (base transceiver station, BTS), a home base station (e.g., home evolved NodeB, or home Node B, HNB), a Base Band Unit (BBU), or a wireless fidelity (wireless fidelity, wifi) Access Point (AP), or a network device in a 5G communication system, or a network device in a future possible communication system, or a satellite. The network device may also be other devices having a network device function, for example, the network device may also be a device-to-device (D2D) or a device functioning as a network device in machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, for example, an internet of vehicles device. The network device may also be a network device in a future possible communication system.

Terminal equipment: the device may also be referred to as UE, mobile Station (MS), mobile Terminal (MT), etc., and may also be referred to as an internet of things device or a device for providing voice or data connectivity to a user. For example, the terminal device includes a handheld device having a wireless connection function, an in-vehicle device, and the like. Currently, the terminal device may be: a mobile phone, a tablet, a laptop, a palmtop, a mobile internet device (mobile internet device, MID), a wearable device (e.g., a smartwatch, a smartband, a pedometer, etc.), a vehicle-mounted device (e.g., an automobile, a bicycle, an electric car, an airplane, a ship, a train, a high-speed rail, etc.), a Virtual Reality (VR) device, an augmented reality (augmented reality, AR) device, a wireless terminal in an industrial control (industrial control), a smart home device (e.g., a refrigerator, a television, an air conditioner, an electric meter, etc.), a smart robot, a workshop device, a wireless terminal in a drone (self driving), a wireless terminal in a teleoperation (remote medical surgery), a wireless terminal in a smart grid (smart grid), a wireless terminal in a transportation security (transportation safety), a wireless terminal in a smart city (smart city), or a wireless terminal in a smart home (smart home), a flying device (e.g., a smart robot, a hot balloon, an airplane, etc.

Beam (Beam): is a communication resource. The beam may be a wide beam, or a narrow beam, or other type of beam. Different beams may be considered different resources. The same information or different information may be transmitted through different beams. Alternatively, a plurality of beams having the same or similar communication characteristics may be regarded as one beam. The beams may be divided into a transmission beam and a reception beam of the network device and a transmission beam and a reception beam of the terminal device. The transmitting beam of the network device is used for describing the beamforming information of the transmitting side of the network device, the receiving beam of the network device is used for describing the beamforming information of the receiving side of the network device, the transmitting beam of the terminal device is used for describing the beamforming information of the transmitting side of the terminal device, and the receiving beam of the terminal device is used for describing the beamforming information of the receiving side of the terminal device. I.e. the beam is used to describe the beamforming information.

The beams may correspond to time resources, and/or spatial resources, and/or frequency domain resources. Optionally, the beam may also correspond to a reference signal resource (e.g., a beamformed reference signal resource), or beamforming information. In addition, the beam may also correspond to information associated with a reference signal resource of the network device, where the reference signal may be CSI-RS, SSB, demodulation reference signal (demodulation reference signal, DMRS), phase tracking signal (phase tracking reference signal, PTRS) tracking signal (tracking reference signal, TRS), and the like, and the information associated with the reference signal resource may be a reference signal resource identifier, or QCL information (especially QCL of type D), and the like. The reference signal resource identifier corresponds to a transceiver beam pair established before based on the reference signal resource measurement, and through the reference signal resource index, the terminal device can infer beam information.

Beam training: operations performed to acquire a plurality of beam pairs with good communication quality between communication devices, such as: the network equipment sends the wave beam, and the terminal equipment receives the wave beam; the terminal device transmits the beam and the network device receives the beam. The network device and the terminal device can communicate according to the trained beam pair.

It should be noted that, when beam training is performed, the reference signal resource needs to be reconfigured multiple times, which wastes signaling resources. Based on the above, the application provides a beam training method to solve the above technical problems, thereby reducing signaling overhead and improving the beam training efficiency.

The following describes a communication system suitable for the beam training method of the present application, where the first communication device and the second communication device may be network devices or terminal devices, and the present application is not limited in practical application. A communication system to which the present application may be applied is described next by way of example with reference to fig. 1A and 1B.

Fig. 1A shows a communication system 100 to which the present application is applicable. The communication system 100 is in a single carrier scenario or carrier aggregation scenario (carrier aggregation, CA), the communication system 100 comprising a network device 110 and a terminal device 120, the network device 110 and the terminal device 120 communicating over a wireless network.

It should be appreciated that one or more cells may be included under network device 110 in fig. 1A. When the transmission direction of the communication system 100 is uplink, the terminal device 120 is a transmitting end, the network device 110 is a receiving end, and when the transmission direction of the communication system 100 is downlink, the network device 110 is a transmitting end, and the terminal device 120 is a receiving end.

Fig. 1B is a communication system 200 to which the present application is applicable. The communication system 200 is in a dual link (dual connectivity, DC) or coordinated multi-point transmission (coordinated multipoint transmission/reception, coMP) scenario, the communication system 200 comprises a network device 210, a network device 220 and a terminal device 230, the network device 210 is a network device when the terminal device 230 is initially accessed, responsible for RRC communication with the terminal device 230, and the network device 220 is added at the time of RRC reconfiguration to provide additional radio resources. The terminal device 230 configured with Carrier Aggregation (CA) is connected to the network device 210 and the network device 220, and a link between the network device 210 and the terminal device 230 may be referred to as a first link and a link between the network device 220 and the terminal device 230 may be referred to as a second link.

The above-described communication system to which the present application is applied is merely an example, and the communication system to which the present application is applied is not limited thereto, and for example, the number of network devices and terminal devices included in the communication system may be other numbers, or a single base station, a multi-carrier aggregation scenario, a dual link scenario or a device-to-device (D2D) communication scenario, a coordinated multi-point transmission CoMP scenario may be adopted. Among other things, coMP may be one or more of a scenario of incoherent joint transmission (non coherent joint transmission, NCJT), coherent joint transmission (coherent joint transmission, cqt), joint transmission (joint transmission, JT), etc.

The embodiment of the application can also be applied to other communication systems, such as: global system for mobile communications (global system of mobile communication, GSM), code division multiple access (code division multiple access, CDMA) system, wideband code division multiple access (wideband code division multiple access, WCDMA) system, general packet radio service (general packet radio service, GPRS), long term evolution (long term evolution, LTE) system, LTE frequency division duplex (frequency division duplex, FDD) system, LTE time division duplex (time division duplex, TDD), universal mobile telecommunications system (universal mobile telecommunication system, UMTS), worldwide interoperability for microwave access (worldwide interoperability for microwave access, wiMAX) communication system, future fifth generation (5th generation,5G) mobile communication system, or New Radio (NR), etc., the 5G mobile communication system of the present application includes a non-stand alone Networking (NSA) 5G mobile communication system and/or a stand alone networking (SA) 5G mobile communication system. The technical scheme provided by the application can also be applied to future communication systems, such as a sixth generation mobile communication system. The communication system may also be a PLMN network, a device-to-device, D2D, machine-to-machine (machine to machine, M2M), ioT, or other network.

Fig. 1C is a schematic diagram illustrating a network element structure in an embodiment of the present application, where a terminal device may refer to a user equipment, an access terminal, a subscriber unit, a subscriber station, a mobile station, a remote terminal, a mobile device, a user terminal, a wireless communication device, a user agent, or a user equipment. The terminal device may also be a cellular telephone, a cordless telephone, a session initiation protocol (session initiation protocol, SIP) phone, a wireless local loop (wireless local loop, WLL) station, a personal digital assistant (personal digital assistant, PDA), a handheld device with wireless communication capabilities, a computing device or other processing device connected to a wireless modem, an in-vehicle device, a wearable device, a terminal device in a future 5G network or a terminal device in a future evolved public land mobile network (public land mobile network, PLMN), etc., as embodiments of the present application are not limited in this respect.

By way of example, and not limitation, in embodiments of the present application, the terminal device may also be a wearable device. The wearable device can also be called as a wearable intelligent device, and is a generic name for intelligently designing daily wear by applying wearable technology and developing wearable devices, such as glasses, gloves, watches, clothes, shoes and the like. The wearable device is a portable device that is worn directly on the body or integrated into the clothing or accessories of the user. The wearable device is not only a hardware device, but also can realize a powerful function through software support, data interaction and cloud interaction. The generalized wearable intelligent device includes full functionality, large size, and may not rely on the smart phone to implement complete or partial functionality, such as: smart watches or smart glasses, etc., and focus on only certain types of application functions, and need to be used in combination with other devices, such as smart phones, for example, various smart bracelets, smart jewelry, etc. for physical sign monitoring.

In addition, in the embodiment of the application, the terminal equipment can also be terminal equipment in an internet of things (internet of things, ioT) system, and the IoT is an important component of the development of future information technology, and the main technical characteristics are that the object is connected with the network through a communication technology, so that the man-machine interconnection and the intelligent network of the internet of things are realized. In the embodiment of the application, the IOT technology can achieve mass connection, deep coverage and terminal power saving through a Narrow Band (NB) technology, for example.

In addition, in the embodiment of the application, the terminal equipment can also comprise sensors such as an intelligent printer, a train detector, a gas station and the like, and the main functions comprise collecting data (part of the terminal equipment), receiving control information and downlink data of the network equipment, sending electromagnetic waves and transmitting the uplink data to the network equipment.

The network device in the embodiment of the present application may be a device for communicating with a terminal device, where the network device may be a base station (base transceiver station, BTS) in a global system for mobile communications (global system for mobile communications, GSM) or code division multiple access (code division multiple access, CDMA), a base station (NodeB, NB) in a wideband code division multiple access (wideband code division multiple access, WCDMA) system, an evolved NodeB (eNB or eNodeB) in an LTE system, a wireless controller in a cloud wireless access network (cloud radio access network, CRAN) scenario, or the network device may be a relay station, an access point, a vehicle-mounted device, a wearable device, a network device in a future 5G network, or a network device in a future evolved PLMN network, etc., and the embodiment of the present application is not limited.

The network device in the embodiments of the present application may be a device in a wireless network, such as a radio access network (radio access network, RAN) node that accesses a terminal to the wireless network. Currently, some examples of RAN nodes are: a base station, a next generation base station gNB, a transmission and reception point (transmission reception point, TRP), an evolved Node B (eNB), a home base station, a baseband unit (BBU), or an Access Point (AP) in a WiFi system, etc. In one network architecture, the network devices may include Centralized Unit (CU) nodes, or Distributed Unit (DU) nodes, or RAN devices including CU nodes and DU nodes.

Referring to fig. 2, a flow chart of a beam training method provided by an embodiment of the present application is shown only by data interaction between a first communication device and a second communication device, and may further involve other network elements during actual application, which is not specifically shown herein.

The application relates to a first cell and a second cell when beam training is carried out, and the first cell and the second cell are related, namely, according to the communication condition of the first cell, the second communication equipment can indirectly know how to send reference signal resources in the second cell, such as: the second communication device is a network device, and the network device is set at the location a, and may serve the cell a and the cell B. There may be an overlap in the geographical locations of cell a and cell B, or cell a and cell B may receive communication services at different network devices, but the communication environment in which cell a and cell B are located is similar. After the network device determines the communication condition of the cell a, the network device may send a reference signal to the cell B with reference to the communication condition of the cell a.

In execution, the beam may be trained with reference to the following steps:

step 201: the second communication device transmits a reference signal of the first cell to the first communication device.

Step 202: the first communication device measures a reference signal of a first cell and obtains first vector information.

It should be noted that, the first communication device may obtain the first vector information by measuring a downlink reference signal resource of the first cell, where the downlink reference signal resource may be CSI-RS or SSB. The first communication device may further obtain the first vector information by measuring an uplink reference signal resource of the first cell, where the uplink reference signal resource may be an SRS or the like.

Step 203: the first communication device reports the first vector information to the second communication device.

Step 204a: the first communication device determines first information according to the first vector information and the association relation between the first vector information and the first information of the second cell.

It should be noted that, the vector information of the first cell may include a plurality of vector information, and in actual application, an association relationship between a plurality of vector information in the vector information of the first cell and a plurality of reference signal resource information of the second cell, or an association relationship between a plurality of vector information in the vector information of the first cell and a plurality of TCI state information of the second cell may be configured according to service requirements. Wherein the vector information of the first cell may be configured by the second communication device (e.g., a network device). In addition, the association relationship may include a plurality of association relationships, wherein one association relationship is an association relationship between the first vector information and the first information of the second cell. When the scheme of the application is applied, after the first communication equipment measures the first cell to obtain the first vector information, the first information is determined through the association relation between the first vector information and the first information of the second cell. It should be understood that the association between the plurality of vector information and the plurality of reference signal resource information, or the association between the plurality of vector information and the plurality of TCI state information may be a one-to-one association, a many-to-one association, or a many-to-many association, which is not limited in the present application.

Table 1 below shows the association of vector information of a first cell with reference signal resource information of a second cell. Table 1 is only schematically illustrated, and in practical application, only a part of rows in the table may be applied, and the present application is not limited in detail herein. The reference signal resource information is vector information for Beam Management (BM) RS set #1, BM RS set #2, and different first cells, and corresponds to different BM RS sets. Table 1 is only schematically described, and in practical application, only a part of rows in the table may be applied, and the present application is not particularly limited herein. The reference signal resource information associated with vector #00 shown in table 1 is BM RS set #1; the reference signal resource information associated with the vector #01 is BM RS set #2, and other vector information of the first cell may also be associated with other BM RS sets, which is not described here. If the first vector information is vector #01, then the reference signal resource information associated with the first vector information is BM RS set #2 (i.e., the first reference signal resource information is BM RS set # 2) according to table 1.

TABLE 1

Vector information of a first cell	First reference signal resource information
Vector #00	BM RS set #1
Vector #01	BM RS set #2
…	…

Note that, when the first information is TCI state information of the second cell, there may be a plurality of TCI state information corresponding to the first information, as shown in table 2 below. Table 2 is only schematically described, and in practical application, only some of the rows in table 2 may be applied, and the present application is not limited in detail herein. The TCI state information associated with vector #00 shown in table 2 is TCI state #1; the TCI state information associated with vector #01 is TCI state #2, and other vector information of the first cell may also be associated with other TCI state information, which is not described herein. If the first vector information is vector #00, then the TCI state information associated with the first vector information is TCI state #1 (i.e., the first TCI state information is TCI state # 1) according to Table 2.

TABLE 2

Vector information of a first cell	TCI state information
Vector #00	TCI state#1
Vector #01	TCI state#2
…	…

The first information may be determined by referring to vector information of the first cell through the association relation. The first communication device measures the first cell to obtain first vector information, wherein the first vector information is one or more of the vector information of the first cell in the present application, and then the first information associated with the first vector information can be obtained according to the first vector information (i.e. the first information can be determined by referring to the first vector information).

Specifically, in practical application, the execution order of the step 203 and the step 204a is not limited, and the step 203 may be executed first, or the step 204a may be executed first, or the step 203 and the step 204a may be executed simultaneously when the processing capability of the first communication device is strong.

Step 204b: the second communication device determines the first information according to the first vector information and the association relation between the first vector information and the first information of the second cell.

In step 204a and step 204b, the first information is the first reference signal resource information of the second cell or the first TCI state information of the second cell.

Step 205a: the second communication device transmits a first reference signal on a first reference resource indicated by the first reference resource information.

Step 205b: the first communication device receives a first reference signal on a first reference signal resource indicated by the first reference resource information.

Step 206a: and the second communication equipment transmits a downlink physical channel according to the first TCI state information.

Step 206b: the first communication device receives the downlink physical channel according to the first TCI state information.

Steps 205a and 205b are performed when the first information is the first reference signal resource information of the second cell, and steps 206a and 206b are performed when the first information is the first TCI state information. Specifically, in practical application, the execution sequence of steps 205 a-205 b and steps 206 a-206 b is not limited.

In the application, the first communication device and the second communication device can determine the first information related to the first vector according to the first vector information and the association relation between the vector information of the first cell and the first information, instead of sending the first information to the first communication device after the second communication device determines the first information. After the first information is determined, the first communication device and the second communication device can perform data processing according to a predetermined mode, for example: the second communication device transmits a first reference signal on a first reference resource, and the first communication device receives the first reference signal on the first reference resource; for another example, the second communication device sends the downlink physical channel according to the first TCI state information, and the first communication device receives the downlink physical channel according to the first TCI state information. The beam training in this way reduces the interaction of signaling and further saves signaling resources.

In an alternative embodiment, the frequency point of the first cell is lower than the frequency point of the second cell, and the reference signal resource of the first cell is a low frequency reference signal resource.

It should be noted that, the coverage of the low-frequency beam is wider than that of the high-frequency beam, such as: the best communication beam is determined within the range of-180 degrees to 180 degrees, the low frequency beam (coverage range is-30 degrees to 30 degrees), the high frequency beam (coverage range is-15 degrees to 15 degrees), the network equipment is required to send 6 (180/30=6) low frequency beams to the terminal equipment through the low frequency beam, but the network equipment is required to send 12 (180/15=12) high frequency beams through the high frequency beam to determine the best communication. Each beam occupies resources in the time domain and the frequency domain, and it is obvious that more beams are needed for determining the optimal communication beam directly through high-frequency beam scanning, and a large number of beams bring about a large amount of resource overhead.

It should be noted that, because the low frequency coverage is better, the first communication device may receive the RS transmitted in omni-direction or the RS transmitted in wide beam, the high frequency path loss is larger, and the communication is performed after obtaining the better narrow beam by using the narrow beam scanning mode in a larger angle range. The high frequency narrow beam scanning process introduces a large resource overhead and time delay.

In an alternative embodiment, the first vector information is PMI information, or the first vector information indicates an L column vector in an R column matrix corresponding to the PMI information, or the first vector information is identification information of an oversampled DFT vector; wherein R, L is a positive integer, R is greater than or equal to L.

Note that, the PMI information may indicate one codebook among the codebooks of type I or type ii in the 38.214 protocol.

The first vector information is identification information of the oversampled DFT vector. For example, N-dimensional DFT vectorThe orthogonal N-dimensional DFT vectors have N { b }, in total ₁ ，b ₂ ，…，b _N }. When the sampling factor is O, the DFT vector is over-sampled to form an over-sampled DFT vectorThe oversampled N-dimensional DFT vectors have a total of O.N { b' ₁ ，b′ ₂ ，…，b′ _ON }。

For convenience of description, the identification information of the oversampled DFT vector may also be referred to as PMI information.

It should be noted that, in another possible implementation manner, the first vector information in the embodiments of the present application may be replaced by "the second reference signal resource information". The second reference signal resource information is reference signal resource information of the first cell.

It should be noted that, in each embodiment of the present application, the reference signal resource information may be a reference signal resource index or a reference signal resource identifier, which is not limited in this application.

The beam direction information of the low-frequency reference signal can be indicated through the PMI information, the first communication device reports the PMI information to the second communication device, and the second communication device can know which direction beams can be received by the terminal device when the beam scanning is performed. The following description will be made with the vector information of the first cell as PMI information.

It should be noted that, the first communication device measures the reference signal of the first cell to obtain PMI information, and feeds back the PMI information to the second communication device, so that the second communication device can activate the reference signal resource associated with the first vector information, thereby avoiding signaling interaction of reconfiguration of the reference signal resource and reducing high-frequency beam training time delay. Because the low frequency and the high frequency have the correlation of an angle domain, the high frequency beam searching range is narrowed through the PMI information measuring result of the low frequency, and the overhead of high frequency beam training can be effectively reduced.

In an alternative embodiment, when the first information is the first reference signal resource information of the second cell, the second communication device may activate the first reference signal resource information associated with the first vector information before performing step 205a (the second communication device transmits the first reference signal on the first reference resource) described above.

Alternatively, the first reference signal resource information may be reference signal resource information for beam management. The first reference signal resource information may be other information in practical application, and the present application is not limited herein, and the description will be given below taking the first reference signal resource information as a BM RS as an example.

For example: and the terminal equipment reports K PMI information, activates the BS RS set associated with the K PMI information, and deactivates other BS RS sets. But in actual application, the network device may also activate BS RS set associated with part of PMI information. In practical application, the first communication device is taken as a terminal device, the second communication device is taken as a network device for illustration, and the method mainly comprises the following 2 modes:

mode 1: the terminal equipment reports PMI information, the PMI information indicates precoding matrixes comprising R columns (the precoding matrixes of the R columns correspond to the precoding vectors of the R columns), and the network equipment activates a BM RS set associated with the precoding vectors of the R columns.

Mode 2: the terminal equipment reports PMI information, the PMI information indicates a precoding matrix comprising R columns (the precoding matrix of the R columns corresponds to the precoding vector of the R columns), and the network equipment activates a BM RS set associated with the L columns (or the front L columns) precoding vector with the best signal quality in the precoding vectors of the R columns. Wherein L may be configured by a network device or may be predefined by a protocol, for example, l=1, and the present application is not limited herein specifically to the value of L.

In another alternative embodiment, when the first information is the first TCI state information, the second communication device may further activate the first TCI state information before performing the above step 206a (the second communication device sends the downlink physical channel according to the first TCI state information). Taking a first communication device as a terminal device and a second communication device as a network device as an example for explanation, the method mainly comprises the following 2 modes:

mode 1: the terminal equipment reports PMI information, the PMI information indicates a precoding matrix comprising R columns (the precoding matrix of the R columns corresponds to the precoding vector of the R columns), and the network equipment activates first TCI state information associated with the precoding vector of the R columns.

Mode 2: the terminal equipment reports PMI information, the PMI information indicates a precoding matrix comprising R columns (the precoding matrix of the R columns corresponds to the precoding vector of the R columns), and the network equipment activates first TCI state information associated with the L columns (or the front L columns) of the precoding vectors with the best signal quality in the precoding vectors of the R columns. Wherein, L may be configured by a network device or may be predefined by a protocol, and the present application is not limited herein specifically to the value of L.

In the prior art, when beam training is performed, a network device needs to configure a reference signal resource set for high-frequency beam scanning. For example, 64 reference signal resources are configured for beam training. The application carries out beam training by directly activating the reference signal resources associated with the PMI information reported by the terminal equipment, omits the process of reconfiguration of the reference signal resources, reduces signaling interaction and reduces the delay of the beam training.

It should be further noted that, the association relationship between the first vector information and the first information may be carried by configuration information (radio resource control (radio resource control, RRC) signaling, MAC CE signaling, DCI signaling) (that is, the second communication device may send the association relationship carried on the configuration information to the first communication device, and the first communication device may obtain the association relationship through the configuration information), or may be autonomously determined by the first communication device (that is, the first communication device measures the channel quality of the first cell to determine the second information, and sends the second information to the second communication device, and the second communication device may obtain the association relationship through the second information), which is not specifically limited herein. Any way of determining the association relationship between the PMI information and the high frequency reference signal is applicable to the present application. Wherein the association relationship comprises: the association relation between PMI information and BM RS, and the association relation between PMI information and TCI state (or TCI state identifier). By the method, signaling interaction between the network equipment and the terminal equipment can be reduced during beam training. In addition, the configuration information may further indicate QCL information that the first vector information is first reference signal resource information.

Next, how the association relationship between PMI information and the information used for BM RS is configured is described by taking a first communication device as a terminal device and a second communication device as a network device as an example:

mode 1: the network device configures the association relation between PMI information and BM RS.

The network device knows the angle information (transmitting beam direction) of the BM RS and also knows the angle information of the eigenvector indicated by the PMI information, so the network device can configure the association relationship between the PMI information and the BM RS according to the angle correlation between the PMI information and the BM RS.

Mode 2: and reporting the association relation between the PMI information and the BM RS by the terminal equipment.

And the terminal equipment determines the association relation between the PMI information and the BM RS according to the channel measurement result. For example, the terminal device measures the channel quality corresponding to the PMI information and the channel quality of the BM RS by using the same received beam, and if the absolute value of the difference between the two channel qualities is smaller than a preset threshold, determines that the PMI information has an association relationship with the BM RS.

Mode 3: after the terminal equipment reports the association relation between the PMI information and the BM RS, the network equipment reconfigures the association relation between the PMI information and the BM RS according to the PMI information of the low-frequency reference signal reported by the terminal equipment.

It should be noted that, after the terminal device reports the association relationship between the PMI information and the BM RS, the network device may choose to directly use the association relationship, or may adjust the association relationship between the PMI information reported by the terminal device and the BM RS according to the PMI information reported by the terminal device, so as to determine the association relationship between the PMI information and the BM RS.

Mode 4: the network equipment configures the association relation between the PMI information and the BM RS transmitting end according to the association relation between the PMI information of the transmitting end and the BM RS. After the terminal equipment receives the association relation between the PMI information of the network equipment and the BM RS transmitting end, determining whether the association relation between the PMI information and the BM RS exists at the receiving end of the terminal equipment according to the channel measurement result, if so, reporting the association relation between the PMI information and the BM RS receiving end to the network equipment by the terminal equipment, and adjusting the association relation between the PMI information and the BM RS by the network equipment according to the association relation between the PMI information and the BM RS receiving end.

The association relation between PMI information and BM RS determined in the above-described 4 modes may be one PMI information associated with one BM RS set, one vector constituted by PMI information associated with one BM RS set, PMI information as QCL information of BM RS, or RS for measuring PMI information as QCL source RS for BM RS.

Next, how the association relationship between PMI information and TCI state is configured is specifically described by taking a first communication device as a terminal device and a second communication device as a network device as an example:

mode 1: the network device configures the association relation between the PMI information and the TCI state (or TCI state identifier).

Mode 2: and reporting the association relation between the PMI information and the TCI state (or TCI state identifier) by the terminal equipment.

The network equipment can refer to the association relation between the PMI information and the first information to determine the transmitted high-frequency reference signal, and in this way, signaling interaction between the network equipment and the terminal equipment can be reduced when beam training is performed, the high-frequency beam training time delay and the overhead are reduced, and the beam indication time delay is reduced.

Furthermore, it is also to be noted that, alternatively, in actual execution, the analog reception beam at the terminal device side of the BM RS may be acquired by several means:

mode 1: receiving reference signals transmitted by network devices via analog beams

If the terminal device receives the low-frequency reference signal sent by the network device by using the analog beam, the first communication device may configure a CSI-RS of at least one of CSI-RS resource identifier (channel state information reference signal resource indicator, CRI), rank Indication (RI), PMI, and channel quality indication (channel quality indicator, CQI) as a QCL type D source reference signal resource (source RS) of the high-frequency CSI-RS.

Mode 2: receiving reference signals transmitted by a second communication device via a digital beam

If the terminal device receives the low-frequency reference signal by adopting the digital beam, the terminal device can map the low-frequency digital beam to the high-frequency analog beam when receiving the BM RS, where the mapping relationship between the low-frequency digital beam and the high-frequency analog beam may be that one digital beam corresponds to N analog beams. The terminal equipment is required to have the capability of reporting N, so that the network equipment can configure the reference signal resource for the selection of the high-frequency analog beam of the terminal equipment according to the value of N.

It should be noted that, the high-frequency path loss is larger, and the high-frequency narrow beam scanning mode is used in a larger angle range to obtain the better high-frequency narrow beam for communication, and the high-frequency narrow beam scanning process brings larger resource overhead and time delay. The application considers that the low frequency coverage is better, the first communication equipment can receive the RS sent in the omni-direction or the RS sent in the wide wave beam, then the first communication equipment can obtain a smaller searching range of the high-frequency narrow wave beam based on the PMI information measuring result of the low frequency, and the cost of the high-frequency wave beam training is reduced. In addition, after the association relation between the PMI information and the first information is determined, the second communication device can issue the associated high-frequency reference signal according to the PMI information reported by the first communication device, and the second communication device does not need to continuously send the switched reference signal resource to the first communication device.

It should be further noted that, in the embodiments of the present application, the first vector information is determined by measuring the first cell, and may be understood as first vector information determined by measuring the reference signal resource of the first cell.

The following detailed description of the embodiments of the present application follows:

embodiment 1: the first information is BMRS

The scheme in embodiment 1 may be performed with reference to fig. 3, where in fig. 3, the first communication device is taken as a UE, and the second communication device is taken as a gNB, and stage 1: and the UE and the gNB acquire the association relation between PMI information and BM RS. The association relationship between PMI information and BM RS at this stage may be configured in the manner described above, for example: the gNB configuration, UE reporting, etc., and not described in detail herein, it should be noted that the association relationship is known to both the UE and the gNB.

Stage 2: the gNB transmits the low-frequency reference signal on a low-frequency reference signal resource, which may be CSI-RS resource information, and it is further noted that the CSI-RS resource information mainly refers to a CSI-RS resource index. Accordingly, the UE receives the low frequency reference signal.

Stage 3: the UE feeds back PMI information (e.g., first PMI information) and channel quality to the gNB. Alternatively, the channel quality may be indicated by reference signal received power (reference signal received power, RSRP), signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (signal to interference plus noise ratio, SINR), or channel quality indication (chanel quality indicator, CQI), where the first PMI information is PMI information corresponding to a better quality channel eigenvector obtained by the UE according to the channel quality measurement result. The PMI information is obtained by low frequency reference signal resource measurement of phase 2.

Stage 4: and the gNB determines the high-frequency BM RS associated with the first PMI information according to the association relation between the PMI information and the high-frequency BM RS, and sends the high-frequency BM RS to the UE. Accordingly, the UE receives the high frequency BM RS. Alternatively, the UE may determine an analog beam required to receive the BM RS according to a reception weight or a reception beam determined when receiving the first PMI information of the low-frequency reference signal and receive the BM RS through the analog beam.

Embodiment 2: the first information is BM RS

The scheme in embodiment 2 may be performed with reference to fig. 4, where in fig. 4, the first communication device is denoted as UE, and the second communication device is denoted as gNB, and in stage 1: and the UE and the gNB acquire the association relation between the PMI information and the high-frequency BM RS. The association relationship between PMI information and BM RS at this stage may be configured in the manner described above, for example: the gNB configuration, UE reporting, etc., and not described in detail herein, it should be noted that the association relationship is known to both the UE and the gNB.

Stage 3: the UE feeds back PMI information (e.g., first PMI information) and channel quality to the gNB. The channel quality may be indicated by RSRP, SINR, CQI, and the first PMI information is PMI information corresponding to a better-quality channel feature vector obtained by the UE according to a channel quality measurement result. The PMI information is obtained by low frequency reference signal resource measurement of phase 2.

Stage 4: after the UE reports PMI information, the gNB activates tcist (or TCI state identifier) associated with the BM RS to perform beam indication.

Compared with the prior art that the network equipment refreshes the TCI state list of the PDSCH through the MAC CE based on the measurement result of the terminal equipment, the method can reduce the time delay required by the control signaling interaction to reduce the beam indication.

The TCI state information (e.g., first TCI state information) may be updated in several ways:

mode 1: the first TCI state information is mapped to a code point of a first word domain of DCI in sequence; the first field is used for indicating TCI state of downlink physical channel

For example, according to the measurement result of the first PMI information, the index of the TCI state corresponding to the BM RS associated with the PMI information is mapped to the code points of the TCI field of the DCI sequentially in the order from small to large (may be from large to small or in another predefined order, and the present application is not specifically limited here). That is, the MAC CE is refreshed with PMI information to a TCI state list configured for a data channel (e.g., PDSCH) or a control channel (e.g., physical downlink control channel (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH)).

For example, TCI state information (index of TCI state) of the second cell is 0, 3, 5, 7, wherein mapping TCI state information to a code point (assuming that the code point is 2 bits) of the first field of DCI in order from small to large can be understood as mapping index 0 to code point 00, index 3 to code point 01, index 5 to code point 10, and index 7 to code point 11.

Mode 2: the first TCI state information is used as TCI state candidate list information of the downlink physical channel

For example, according to the measurement result of the first PMI information, the TCI state corresponding to the BM RS associated with the PMI information is set as a candidate TCI state list of the PDCCH. I.e. by PMI information refresh, the RRC configures a TCI state list for the control channel (e.g. PDCCH).

For example, the TCI state candidate list of the downlink physical channel of the second cell includes a plurality of TCI states, and the first communication device may select one or more TCI states in the TCI state candidate list of the downlink physical channel of the second cell to receive the downlink physical channel when actually applied.

Embodiment 3:the first information is BM RS

The scheme in embodiment 3 may be performed with reference to fig. 5, where in fig. 5, the first communication device is taken as a UE, and the second communication device is taken as a gNB, and stage 1: the gNB transmits the low-frequency reference signal on a low-frequency reference signal resource, which may be CSI-RS resource information, and it is further noted that the CSI-RS resource information mainly refers to a CSI-RS resource index.

Stage 2: the UE feeds back PMI information (e.g., first PMI information) and channel quality to the gNB. The channel quality may be indicated by RSRP, SINR, CQI, and the first PMI information is PMI information corresponding to a better-quality channel feature vector obtained by the UE according to a channel quality measurement result.

Stage 3: the gNB configures QCL information of the BM RS, and the QCL information comprises first PMI information.

Stage 4: the gNB transmits the BM RS to the UE. Accordingly, the UE receives the high frequency BM RS. Alternatively, the UE may determine an analog beam (or referred to as a reception beam) required to receive the BM RS according to a reception weight or a reception beam determined when receiving the first PMI information of the low-frequency reference signal and receive the BM RS through the analog beam (or the reception beam).

Embodiment 4:the first information is TCI state corresponding to the first TCI state information

The scheme in embodiment 4 may be performed with reference to fig. 6, where in fig. 6, the first communication device is taken as a UE, and the second communication device is taken as a gNB, and stage 1: and the UE and the gNB both acquire the association relation between the PMI information and the TCI state. The association relationship between PMI information and TCI state in this stage may be configured in the above manner, for example: the gNB configuration, UE reporting, etc., and not described in detail herein, it should be noted that the association relationship is known to both the UE and the gNB.

Stage 2: the gNB transmits the low-frequency reference signal on a low-frequency reference signal resource, which may be CSI-RS resource information, and it is further noted that the CSI-RS resource information mainly refers to a CSI-RS resource index.

Stage 3: the UE feeds back PMI information (e.g., first PMI information) and channel quality to the gNB. The channel quality may be indicated by RSRP, SINR, CQI, and the first PMI information is PMI information corresponding to a better-quality channel feature vector obtained by the UE according to a channel quality measurement result.

Stage 4: the gNB activates a TCI state list (TCI state list of RRC configured downlink physical channels) for transmitting downlink physical channels (PDSCH or PDCCH). The TCI states in the TCI state list are mapped to code points in the TCI domain in the DCI in order of index from small to large.

Stage 5: and the gNB transmits DCI, the code point value of the TCI domain in the DCI is L, and correspondingly, the UE receives the DCI, and the code point value of the TCI domain in the DCI is L.

Stage 6: the gNB sends the downlink physical channel according to one TCI state x in the TCI state list updated by the TCI domain indication in the DCI (i.e. one TCI state in the TCI state list updated in the stage 4, and the code point value L of the TCI domain indicates the TCI state x). Accordingly, the UE updates one TCI state x in the TCI state list according to the TCI field indication in the DCI to receive the PDSCH.

For example, according to the measurement result of the first PMI information, the indexes of the TCI states associated with the PMI information are mapped to the code points of the TCI field of the DCI sequentially in the order from small to large (may be from large to small or in other predefined order, and the present application is not specifically limited herein). That is, the TCI state list configured for the data channel (e.g., PDSCH) or the control channel (e.g., PDCCH) by the MAC CE is refreshed with PMI information.

For example, TCI state information (index of TCI state) of the second cell associated with the first vector information is 0, 3, 5, 7, wherein a code point (assuming that the code point is 2 bits) at which the TCI state information is mapped to the first field of DCI in order from small to large can be understood that index 0 is mapped to code point 00, index 3 is mapped to code point 01, index 5 is mapped to code point 10, and index 7 is mapped to code point 11.

Mode 2: TCI state candidate list using first TCI state information as downlink physical channel

For example, according to the measurement result of the first PMI information, the TCI state associated with the PMI information is used as a candidate TCI state list of the PDCCH. I.e. by PMI information refresh, the RRC configures a TCI state list for the control channel (e.g. PDCCH).

It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present application, the UE may report whether the above operations are supported to be executed through the terminal capability parameter, for example, report the capability of the association relationship between PMI information and BM RS; for another example, reporting the capability of the association relationship between PMI information and TCI state information; for another example, the capability of QCL information related to BM RS (i.e., the capability of PMI information as QCL information) is determined based on PMI information.

The application considers that the low frequency coverage is better, the first communication equipment can receive the RS sent in the omni-direction or the RS sent in the wide beam, then the first communication equipment can obtain a smaller searching range of the high-frequency narrow beam based on the low-frequency PMI measurement result, and the overhead of high-frequency beam training is reduced. In addition, after the association relation between the PMI and the first information is determined, the second communication device can issue the associated high-frequency reference signal according to the PMI reported by the first communication device, and the second communication device does not need to continuously send the switched reference signal resource to the first communication device.

Based on the same concept, as shown in fig. 7, an embodiment of the present application provides a beam training apparatus, including: a transceiver unit 71, and a processing unit 72.

If the beam training apparatus is a first communication device, the processing unit 71 of the first communication device may be configured to send first vector information, which is determined by measuring the first cell; a processing unit 72, configured to determine first information according to the first vector information, the association relationship between the first vector information and the first information of the second cell; the first information is first reference signal resource information, or the first information is first TCI state information; and if the first information is the first reference signal resource information, receiving a first reference signal on a first reference signal resource indicated by the first reference signal resource information; or if the first information is the first TCI state information, receiving the downlink physical channel according to the first TCI state information.

In an alternative way, the association is determined by: receiving configuration information from a second communication device; the configuration information indicates that the association relation exists; or determining the association relation according to the channel quality of the first cell measured by the first communication equipment.

If the beam training apparatus is a second communication device, the transceiver unit 71 of the second communication device may be configured to receive the first vector information; a processing unit 72, configured to determine the first information according to the first vector information, and an association relationship between the first vector information and first information of a second cell; the first information is first reference signal resource information or first TCI state information; and if the first information is the first reference signal resource information, transmitting a first reference signal on a first reference signal resource indicated by the first reference signal resource information; or if the first information is the first TCI state information, sending a downlink physical channel according to the first TCI state information.

In an alternative manner, the first information is first reference signal resource information; the processing unit 72 is further configured to activate the first reference signal resource.

In an alternative manner, the processing unit 72 is further configured to determine the first TCI state information according to the first reference signal resource; and activating the TCI state corresponding to the first TCI state information.

Based on the same concept, as shown in fig. 8, a communication device 800 is provided for the present application. The communication device 800 may be a chip or a system-on-chip, for example. Alternatively, the chip system in the embodiment of the present application may be formed by a chip, and may also include a chip and other discrete devices.

The communication device 800 may include at least one processor 810 and the communication device 800 may also include at least one memory 820 for storing computer programs, program instructions, and/or data. The memory 820 is coupled to the processor 810. The coupling in the embodiments of the present application is an indirect coupling or communication connection between devices, units, or modules, which may be in electrical, mechanical, or other forms for information interaction between the devices, units, or modules. Processor 810 may operate in conjunction with memory 820. Processor 810 may execute computer programs stored in memory 820. Optionally, the at least one memory 820 may be integrated into the processor 810.

It should be noted that the processor may be the processing unit in fig. 7, and the transceiver may be the processing unit in fig. 7.

The communication device 800 may further include a transceiver unit 830, where the communication device 800 may perform information interaction with other devices through the transceiver unit 830. The transceiver unit 830 may be a circuit, a bus, a transceiver unit, or any other device that may be used for information interaction.

In a possible implementation manner, the communication device 800 may be applied to the foregoing network device, and the specific communication device 800 may be the foregoing network device, or may be an apparatus capable of supporting the foregoing network device to implement any of the foregoing embodiments. Memory 820 holds the necessary computer programs, program instructions and/or data to implement the functions of the network device in any of the embodiments described above. The processor 810 may execute a computer program stored in the memory 820 to perform the method of any of the embodiments described above.

The specific connection medium between the transceiver unit 830, the processor 810, and the memory 820 is not limited in the embodiment of the present application. In the embodiment of the present application, the memory 820, the processor 810 and the transceiver unit 830 are connected through a bus, and in addition, the transceiver unit may be further connected to the antenna 840, where the bus is indicated by a thick line in fig. 8, and the connection manner between other components is only schematically illustrated, and is not limited thereto. The buses may be classified as address buses, data buses, control buses, etc. For ease of illustration, only one thick line is shown in fig. 8, but not only one bus or one type of bus.

In an embodiment of the present application, the processor may be a general purpose processor, a digital signal processor, an application specific integrated circuit, a field programmable gate array or other programmable logic device, a discrete gate or transistor logic device, or a discrete hardware component, and may implement or execute the methods, steps, and logic blocks disclosed in the embodiments of the present application. The general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or any conventional processor or the like. The steps of a method disclosed in connection with the embodiments of the present application may be embodied directly in a hardware processor for execution, or in a combination of hardware and software modules in the processor for execution.

In the embodiment of the present application, the memory may be a nonvolatile memory, such as a hard disk (HDD) or a Solid State Drive (SSD), or may be a volatile memory (RAM). The memory may also be any other medium that can be used to carry or store desired program code in the form of instructions or data structures and that can be accessed by a computer, but is not limited to such. The memory in embodiments of the present application may also be circuitry or any other device capable of implementing a memory function for storing computer programs, program instructions and/or data.

In an embodiment of the application, the communication device includes a hardware layer, an operating system layer running on top of the hardware layer, and an application layer running on top of the operating system layer. The hardware layer includes hardware such as a central processing unit (central processing unit, CPU), a memory management unit (memory management unit, MMU), and a memory (also referred to as a main memory). The operating system may be any one or more computer operating systems that implement business processes through processes (processes), such as a Linux operating system, a Unix operating system, an Android operating system, an iOS operating system, or a windows operating system. The application layer comprises applications such as a browser, an address book, word processing software, instant messaging software and the like. Further, the embodiment of the present application is not particularly limited to the specific structure of the execution body of the method provided by the embodiment of the present application, as long as the communication can be performed by the method provided according to the embodiment of the present application by running the program recorded with the code of the method provided by the embodiment of the present application, and for example, the execution body of the method provided by the embodiment of the present application may be a terminal device or a network device, or a functional module in the terminal device or the network device that can call the program and execute the program.

Based on the above embodiments, the embodiments of the present application further provide a readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed, cause a method performed by the security detection device in any of the above embodiments to be implemented. The readable storage medium may include: various media capable of storing program codes, such as a U disk, a mobile hard disk, a read-only memory, a random access memory, a magnetic disk or an optical disk.

It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that embodiments of the present application may be provided as a method, system, or computer program product. Accordingly, the present application may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects. Furthermore, the present application may take the form of a computer program product embodied on one or more computer-usable storage media (including, but not limited to, disk storage, CD-ROM, optical storage, and the like) having computer-usable program code embodied therein.

The present application is described with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) and computer program products according to the application. It will be understood that each flow and/or block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of flows and/or blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, embedded processor, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

Claims

A beam training method applied to a first communication device, comprising:

transmitting first vector information, the first vector information being determined for measurement of a first cell;

determining first information according to the first vector information and the association relation between the first vector information and the first information of a second cell; the first information is first reference signal resource information or first transmission configuration indication state TCI state information;

If the first information is the first reference signal resource information, receiving a first reference signal on a first reference signal resource indicated by the first reference signal resource information;

or alternatively, the process may be performed,

and if the first information is the first TCI state information, receiving a downlink physical channel according to the first TCI state information.
The method of claim 1, wherein the frequency point of the first cell is lower than the frequency point of the second cell.
The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the association relation is determined by:

receiving configuration information from a second communication device; the configuration information indicates the association relation;

or alternatively, the process may be performed,

and determining the association relation according to the channel quality of the first cell measured by the first communication equipment.
A method according to any one of claims 1-3, wherein the first vector information is precoding matrix indicating PMI information, or the first vector information indicates L column vectors in an R column matrix corresponding to PMI information, or the first vector information is identification information of an oversampled discrete fourier transform DFT vector;

Wherein R, L is a positive integer, and R is greater than or equal to L.
The method according to any one of claims 1-4, wherein the first TCI state information is mapped sequentially onto a code point of a first field of downlink control information DCI; the first field is used for indicating a TCI state of the downlink physical channel.
The method according to any one of claims 1-4, wherein the first TCI state information is TCI state candidate list information of a downlink physical channel.
The method of claim 3, wherein the configuration information indicates that the first vector information is quasi co-sited QCL information of the first reference signal resource information.
The method according to any of claims 1-4, wherein the first reference signal resource information is reference signal resource information for beam management.
A beam training method applied to a second communication device, comprising:

receiving first vector information;

determining first information according to the first vector information and the association relation between the first vector information and the first information of a second cell; the first information is first reference signal resource information or first transmission configuration indication state TCI state information;

If the first information is the first reference signal resource information, a first reference signal is sent on a first reference signal resource indicated by the first reference signal resource information;

or alternatively, the process may be performed,

and if the first information is the first TCI state information, transmitting a downlink physical channel according to the first TCI state information.
The method of claim 9, wherein the frequency point of the first cell is lower than the frequency point of the second cell.
The method according to claim 9 or 10, wherein the association is determined by:

receiving second information from the first communication device; the second information indicates the association relation;

or alternatively, the process may be performed,

determining the association relation; the association is carried in configuration information.
The method according to any of claims 9-11, wherein the first vector information is precoding matrix indicating PMI information, or the first vector information indicates L column vectors in an R column matrix corresponding to PMI information, or the first vector information is identification information of an oversampled discrete fourier transform DFT vector;

wherein R, L is a positive integer, and R is greater than or equal to L.
The method according to any of claims 9-12, wherein the first information is first reference signal resource information; the method further comprises the steps of:

and activating the first reference signal resource.
The method of claim 13, wherein the method further comprises:

determining the first TCI state information according to the first reference signal resource;

and activating the TCI state corresponding to the first TCI state information.
The method of claim 11, wherein the configuration information indicates that the first vector information is quasi co-sited QCL information of the first reference signal resource information.
The method according to any of claims 9-12, wherein the first reference signal resource information is reference signal resource information for beam management.
The method according to any one of claims 9-12, wherein the first information is first TCI state information; the method further comprises the steps of:

and activating the TCI state corresponding to the first TCI state information.
The method according to claim 14 or 17, characterized in that the first TCI state information is mapped sequentially onto a code point of a first field of downlink control information DCI; the first field is used for indicating a TCI state of a downlink physical channel.
The method according to claim 14 or 17, wherein the first TCI state information is TCI state candidate list information of a downlink physical channel.
A beam training apparatus, comprising:

a transceiver unit, configured to transmit first vector information, where the first vector information is determined by measuring a first cell;

a processing unit, configured to determine first information according to the first vector information, an association relationship between the first vector information and first information of a second cell; the first information is first reference signal resource information or first transmission configuration indication state TCI state information;

if the first information is the first reference signal resource information, receiving a first reference signal on a first reference signal resource indicated by the first reference signal resource information; or if the first information is the first TCI state information, receiving a downlink physical channel according to the first TCI state information.
The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the frequency point of the first cell is lower than the frequency point of the second cell.
The apparatus according to claim 20 or 21, wherein the association relation is determined by:

receiving configuration information from a second communication device; the configuration information indicates the association relation;

or alternatively, the process may be performed,

and determining the association relation according to the channel quality of the first cell measured by the first communication equipment.
The apparatus according to any one of claims 20-22, wherein the first vector information is precoding matrix indicating PMI information, or the first vector information indicates L column vectors in an R column matrix corresponding to PMI information, or the first vector information is identification information of an oversampled discrete fourier transform DFT vector;

wherein R, L is a positive integer, and R is greater than or equal to L.
The apparatus according to any one of claims 20-23, wherein the first TCI state information is mapped sequentially onto a code point of a first field of downlink control information DCI; the first field is used for indicating a TCI state of the downlink physical channel.
The apparatus according to any of claims 20-23, wherein the first TCI state information is TCI state candidate list information for a downlink physical channel.
The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the configuration information indicates that the first vector information is quasi co-sited QCL information of the first reference signal resource information.
The apparatus according to any of claims 20-23, wherein the first reference signal resource information is reference signal resource information for beam management.
A beam training apparatus, comprising:

a transceiver unit for receiving the first vector information;

a processing unit, configured to determine first information according to the first vector information, an association relationship between the first vector information and first information of a second cell; the first information is first reference signal resource information or first transmission configuration indication state TCI state information;

if the first information is the first reference signal resource information, a first reference signal is sent on a first reference signal resource indicated by the first reference signal resource information; or if the first information is the first TCI state information, sending a downlink physical channel according to the first TCI state information.
The apparatus of claim 28, wherein the frequency point of the first cell is lower than the frequency point of the second cell.
The apparatus according to claim 28 or 29, wherein the association relationship is determined by:

receiving second information from the first communication device; the second information indicates the association relation;

or alternatively, the process may be performed,

determining the association relation; the association is carried in configuration information.
The apparatus according to any one of claims 28-30, wherein the first vector information is precoding matrix indicating PMI information, or the first vector information indicates L column vectors in an R column matrix corresponding to PMI information, or the first vector information is identification information of an oversampled discrete fourier transform DFT vector;

wherein R, L is a positive integer, and R is greater than or equal to L.
The apparatus according to any one of claims 28-30, wherein the first information is first reference signal resource information; the processing unit is further configured to:

and activating the first reference signal resource.
The apparatus of claim 32, wherein the processing unit is further configured to:

determining the first TCI state information according to the first reference signal resource;

and activating the TCI state corresponding to the first TCI state information.
The apparatus of claim 30, wherein the configuration information indicates that the first vector information is quasi co-sited QCL information of the first reference signal resource information.
The apparatus according to any of claims 28-31, wherein the first reference signal resource information is reference signal resource information for beam management.
The apparatus according to any one of claims 28-31, wherein the first information is first TCI state information; the processing unit is further configured to:

and activating the TCI state corresponding to the first TCI state information.
The apparatus according to claim 33 or 36, wherein the first TCI state information is mapped sequentially to a code point of a first field of downlink control information DCI; the first field is used for indicating a TCI state of a downlink physical channel.
The apparatus of claim 33 or 36, wherein the first TCI state information is TCI state candidate list information for a downlink physical channel.
A communication device, comprising: a processor and a memory;

the memory is used for storing a computer program;

the processor configured to execute a computer program stored in the memory to cause the communication device to perform the method of any one of claims 1-8 or 9-19.
A computer readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed, cause a computer to perform the method of any one of claims 1-8 or 9-19.