阅读说明：本技术 用于NR中SCell波束故障恢复操作的波束信息递送 (Beam information delivery for SCell beam failure recovery operation in NR ) 是由 王国童 张羽书 A·达维多夫 熊岗 于 2020-05-08 设计创作，主要内容包括：用于在无线通信系统中为辅小区波束故障恢复提供波束信息的装置、系统和方法。无线设备和蜂窝基站可建立无线链路,根据该无线链路,该无线设备可被配置为使用主小区和辅小区进行通信。该无线设备可检测该辅小区上的波束故障。该无线设备可将对波束故障恢复的指示发送至该蜂窝基站。该无线设备可接收配置候选发射波束参考信号以用于在该辅小区上执行波束恢复的信息。该无线设备可对由该无线设备识别的任何新发射波束执行波束识别和报告。(Apparatus, systems, and methods for providing beam information for secondary cell beam failure recovery in a wireless communication system. The wireless device and the cellular base station may establish a wireless link according to which the wireless device may be configured to communicate using the primary cell and the secondary cell. The wireless device may detect a beam failure on the secondary cell. The wireless device may transmit an indication of beam failure recovery to the cellular base station. The wireless device may receive information configuring candidate transmit beam reference signals for performing beam recovery on the secondary cell. The wireless device may perform beam identification and reporting on any new transmitted beams identified by the wireless device.)

1. An apparatus, comprising:

a processor configured to cause a wireless device to:

establishing a wireless link with a cellular base station, wherein according to the wireless link, the wireless device is configured to communicate using at least a primary cell and a secondary cell;

detecting a beam failure on the secondary cell;

transmitting an indication of the beam failure of the secondary cell to the cellular base station; and

receiving information configuring multiple types of reference signals as candidate transmit beams for the wireless device for performing beam failure recovery on the secondary cell.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the wireless device to:

performing beam identification using the configured candidate transmit beams to identify a new transmit beam; and

providing an indication of the new transmit beam to the cellular base station, wherein the indication of the new transmit beam comprises a reference signal resource indicator, wherein the indication of the new transmit beam is provided to the cellular base station using resources configured to indicate a reference signal type associated with the new transmit beam.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the wireless device to:

Performing beam recognition using the configured candidate transmit beams to identify one or more new transmit beams; and

providing an indication of the one or more new transmit beams to the cellular base station, wherein the indication of the one or more new transmit beams is provided to the cellular base station using resources configured to indicate the number of indicated new transmit beams.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the information configuring multiple types of reference signals as candidate transmit beams for the wireless device for performing beam failure recovery on the secondary cell comprises a first list comprising only reference signals of a first type and a second list comprising only reference signals of a second type, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the wireless device to:

performing beam identification using the configured candidate transmit beams to identify a new transmit beam; and

providing an indication of the new transmit beam to the cellular base station, wherein the indication of the new transmit beam comprises an indication of whether the new transmit beam is associated with the first list or the second list.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the wireless device to:

performing beam identification using the configured candidate transmit beams to identify a new transmit beam; and

providing an indication of the new transmit beam to the cellular base station, wherein the indication of the new transmit beam comprises a candidate beam resource indicator associated with the new transmit beam,

wherein each of the plurality of possible values of the candidate beam resource indicator is associated with each of a plurality of candidate transmit beams and one possible value of the candidate beam resource indicator is associated with no new beam being identified.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the wireless device to:

performing beam identification using the configured candidate transmit beams to identify a new transmit beam; and

providing an indication of the new transmit beam to the cellular base station, wherein the indication of the new transmit beam comprises a reference signal resource indicator and an indicator of a reference signal type associated with the new transmit beam.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first and second electrodes are disposed on opposite sides of the housing,

wherein the plurality of types of reference signals include at least a Synchronization Signal Block (SSB) and a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS).

8. A wireless device, comprising:

an antenna;

a radio coupled to the antenna; and

a processor coupled to the radio;

wherein the wireless device is configured to:

establishing a wireless link with a cellular base station, wherein according to the wireless link, the wireless device is configured to communicate using at least a primary cell and a secondary cell;

detecting a beam failure on the secondary cell;

transmitting an indication of the beam failure of the secondary cell to the cellular base station; and

receiving a first list of configuration candidate transmit beam reference signals for performing beam failure recovery on the secondary cell.

9. The wireless device of claim 8, wherein the wireless device is further configured to:

receiving an indication of a first type of reference signal included in the first list configuring candidate transmit beam reference signals for performing beam failure recovery on the secondary cell, wherein the first list configuring candidate transmit beam reference signals for performing beam failure recovery on the secondary cell includes only the first type of reference signal.

10. The wireless device of claim 9, wherein the wireless device is further configured to:

receiving a second list of configuration candidate transmit beam reference signals for performing beam failure recovery on the secondary cell; and

receiving an indication of a second type of reference signal included in the second list of configuration candidate transmit beam reference signals for performing beam failure recovery on the secondary cell, wherein the second list of configuration candidate transmit beam reference signals for performing beam failure recovery on the secondary cell includes only the second type of reference signal.

11. The wireless device of claim 10, wherein the wireless device is further configured to:

performing beam identification using the configured candidate transmit beam reference signals to identify a new transmit beam; and

providing an indication of the new transmit beam to the cellular base station, wherein the indication of the new transmit beam comprises an indication of whether the new transmit beam is associated with the first list configuring candidate transmit beam reference signals for performing beam failure recovery on the secondary cell or the second list configuring candidate transmit beam reference signals for performing beam failure recovery on the secondary cell.

12. The wireless device of claim 8, wherein the first list of candidate transmit beam reference signals configured for performing beam failure recovery on the secondary cell comprises a plurality of types of reference signals, wherein the wireless device is further configured to:

performing beam identification using the configured candidate transmit beam reference signals to identify a new transmit beam; and

providing an indication of the new transmit beam to the cellular base station, wherein the indication of the new transmit beam comprises a candidate beam resource indicator associated with the new transmit beam.

13. The wireless device of claim 8, wherein the first list of candidate transmit beam reference signals configured for performing beam failure recovery on the secondary cell comprises a plurality of types of reference signals, wherein the wireless device is further configured to:

performing beam identification using the configured candidate transmit beam reference signals to identify a new transmit beam; and

providing an indication of the new transmit beam to the cellular base station, wherein the indication of the new transmit beam comprises a reference signal resource indicator and an indicator of a reference signal type associated with the new transmit beam.

14. A method, comprising:

by the cellular base station:

establishing a wireless link with a wireless device, wherein according to the wireless link, the wireless device is configured to communicate using at least a primary cell and a secondary cell;

receiving, from a wireless device, an indication of a beam failure on the secondary cell; and

configuring multiple types of reference signals as candidate transmit beams for the wireless device for performing beam failure recovery on the secondary cell in response to a beam failure recovery request.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the multiple types of reference signals are configured as candidate transmit beams using a plurality of candidate transmit beam lists including a first list including only reference signals of a first type and a second list including only reference signals of a second type, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving an indication of a new transmit beam from the wireless device, wherein the indication of the new transmit beam comprises an indication of whether the new transmit beam is associated with the first list or the second list.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the method further comprises:

Receiving an indication of a new transmit beam from the wireless device, wherein the indication of the new transmit beam comprises a candidate beam resource indicator associated with the new transmit beam.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving an indication of a new transmit beam from the wireless device, wherein the indication of the new transmit beam comprises a reference signal resource indicator and an indicator of a reference signal type associated with the new transmit beam.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving an indication of a new transmit beam from the wireless device, wherein the indication of the new transmit beam comprises a reference signal resource indicator, wherein the indication of the new transmit beam is received by the cellular base station using resources configured to indicate a reference signal type associated with the new transmit beam.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving an indication of one or more new transmit beams from the wireless device, wherein the indication of the one or more new transmit beams is received by the cellular base station using resources configured to indicate a number of indicated new transmit beams.

20. The method of claim 14, wherein the first and second light sources are selected from the group consisting of,

wherein the plurality of types of reference signals include at least a Synchronization Signal Block (SSB) and a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS).

Technical Field

The present application relates to wireless devices, and more particularly, to an apparatus, system, and method for providing beam information for secondary cell beam failure recovery in a wireless communication system.

Description of the related Art

The use of wireless communication systems is growing rapidly. In recent years, wireless devices such as smartphones and tablets have become more sophisticated. In addition to supporting telephone calls, many mobile devices now provide access to the internet, email, text messaging, and navigation using the Global Positioning System (GPS), and are capable of operating sophisticated applications that take advantage of these functions. In addition, many different wireless communication technologies and wireless communication standards exist. Some examples of wireless communication standards include GSM, UMTS (e.g., associated with WCDMA or TD-SCDMA air interfaces), LTE-advanced (LTE-A), HSPA, 3GPP2 CDMA2000 (e.g., 1xRTT, 1xEV-DO, HRPD, eHRPD), IEEE 802.11(WLAN or Wi-Fi), BLUETOOTH^TMAnd the like.

The introduction of an ever increasing number of features and functions in wireless communication devices also requires continual improvements in wireless communication and improvements in wireless communication devices. In order to increase coverage and better serve the increased demand and range of intended uses of wireless communications, in addition to the above-described communication standards, there are wireless communication technologies being developed, including fifth generation (5G) new air interface (NR) communications. Accordingly, there is a need for improvements in the areas that support such development and design.

Disclosure of Invention

Embodiments relate to an apparatus, system, and method for providing beam information for secondary cell beam failure recovery in a wireless communication system.

According to the techniques described herein, a wireless device that has established a cellular link (including configuration using a primary cell and a secondary cell) may detect a beam failure on the secondary cell. The wireless device may report a beam failure and may be configured with candidate transmit beam reference signal resources for attempting to perform beam failure recovery for the secondary cell in response to reporting the beam failure. The wireless device may use the configured resources to perform beam identification and report any new transmit beams identified.

The candidate transmit beam reference signal resources may be configured to enable the wireless device to distinguish a reference signal type for each of the reference signal resources. For example, it may be the case that a list of candidate transmit beam reference signal resources is provided that includes only one type of reference signal resource, and an indication of the type of reference signal resource associated with the list may also be provided. As another possibility, multiple lists may be provided, each list including only one type of reference signal resource, and an indication of which type of reference signal resource is associated with which list may also be provided. As another possibility, a list of candidate transmit beam reference signal resources comprising multiple types of reference signal resources may be provided, enabling the wireless device to distinguish which candidate transmit beam reference signal resource is associated with which type of reference signal.

In addition, the wireless device may report any new transmit beams identified by the wireless device so that the serving cellular base station for the wireless device can identify the reference signal type of the new transmit beam. For example, the wireless device may provide an indication of a new transmission beam, which may indicate from which of a plurality of lists of candidate transmission beam reference signal resources (and thus which type of reference signal resources, e.g., if each list is associated with only one reference signal type) the new transmission beam is identified. As another possibility, the indication of the new transmission beam may comprise a candidate beam resource indicator for identifying which candidate transmission beam reference signal resource is associated with the new transmission beam. As another possibility, the indication of the new transmit beam may comprise a reference signal indicator and an indicator of a reference signal type of the new transmit beam. As another possibility, the indication of the new transmit beam may be provided using resources configured to indicate a reference signal type associated with the new transmit beam.

The techniques described herein may be implemented in and/or used with a number of different types of devices, including, but not limited to, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), unmanned aerial vehicles (UACs), cellular telephones, tablet computers, wearable computing devices, portable media players, automobiles and/or motor vehicles, and any of a variety of other computing devices.

This summary is intended to provide a brief overview of some of the subject matter described in this document. Accordingly, it should be understood that the above-described features are merely examples and should not be construed to narrow the scope or spirit of the subject matter described herein in any way. Other features, aspects, and advantages of the subject matter described herein will become apparent from the following detailed description, the accompanying drawings, and the claims.

Drawings

A better understanding of the present subject matter can be obtained when the following detailed description of various embodiments is considered in conjunction with the following drawings, in which:

fig. 1 illustrates an example wireless communication system according to some embodiments;

fig. 2 illustrates a Base Station (BS) in communication with a User Equipment (UE) device, in accordance with some embodiments;

fig. 3 illustrates an exemplary block diagram of a UE according to some embodiments;

fig. 4 illustrates an exemplary block diagram of a BS according to some embodiments;

fig. 5 illustrates an exemplary block diagram of a cellular communication circuit in accordance with some embodiments;

fig. 6 illustrates an exemplary block diagram of a network element according to some embodiments;

fig. 7 is a communication flow diagram illustrating aspects of an example method for providing beam information for secondary cell beam failure recovery in a wireless communication system, in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 8 illustrates aspects of one possible BeamFailureRecoveryConfig information element, in accordance with some embodiments;

fig. 9 illustrates aspects of one possible beam identification and reporting mechanism, in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 10 illustrates aspects of one possible measurement model that may be used to perform beam measurements, in accordance with some embodiments;

fig. 11-12 are tables illustrating examples of possible physical downlink control channel transmission parameters for SSB and CSI-RS based beam failure detection, according to some embodiments;

fig. 13-14 are tables illustrating examples of possible evaluation periods for performing SSB-based beam fault detection in FR1 and FR2, according to some embodiments;

fig. 15-16 are tables illustrating examples of possible evaluation periods for performing CSI-RS based beam failure detection in FR1 and FR2, according to some embodiments;

fig. 17 illustrates an exemplary architecture of a wireless communication system according to some embodiments;

fig. 18 illustrates an exemplary architecture of a system including a first cellular core network, in accordance with some embodiments;

figure 19 shows an exemplary architecture of a system including a second cellular core network, in accordance with some embodiments;

Fig. 20 illustrates an example of infrastructure equipment according to some embodiments;

fig. 21 illustrates an example of a platform or device according to some embodiments;

fig. 22 illustrates exemplary components of a baseband circuit and radio front end module, according to some embodiments;

fig. 23 illustrates various protocol functions that may be implemented in a wireless communication device, in accordance with some embodiments; and is

Fig. 24 is a block diagram illustrating components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium and of performing any one or more of the methods described herein, according to some embodiments.

While features described herein are susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and are herein described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the disclosure to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the subject matter as defined by the appended claims.

Detailed Description

Acronyms

Various acronyms are used throughout this disclosure. The definitions of the most prominent acronyms used that may appear throughout this disclosure are as follows:

3 GPP: third generation partnership project

4G: fourth generation

5G: fifth generation

Rel: version(s)

NW: network

RF: radio frequency

UE: user equipment

BS: base station

gNB: next generation node B

GSM: global mobile communication system

UMTS: universal mobile telecommunications system

LTE: long term evolution

NR: new air interface

NR-U: NR unlicensed

RAT: radio access technology

TX: transmission/emission

RX: receiving/receiving

UL: uplink link

DL: downlink link

CORESET: controlling resource sets

LBT: listen before talk

MCOT: maximum channel occupancy time

CWS: contention window size

HARQ: hybrid automatic repeat request

ACK: confirmation

NACK: negative acknowledgement

Term(s) for

The following is a glossary of terms used in this disclosure:

memory medium — any of various types of non-transitory memory devices or storage devices. The term "storage medium" is intended to include mounting media such as CD-ROM, floppy disk, or tape devices; computer system memory or random access memory such as DRAM, DDR RAM, SRAM, EDO RAM, Rambus RAM, etc.; non-volatile memory such as flash memory, magnetic media, e.g., a hard disk drive or optical storage; registers or other similar types of memory elements, and the like. The memory medium may also include other types of non-transitory memory or combinations thereof. Further, the memory medium may be located in a first computer system executing the program, or may be located in a different second computer system connected to the first computer system through a network such as the internet. In the latter case, the second computer system may provide program instructions to the first computer for execution. The term "memory medium" may include two or more memory media that may reside at different locations in different computer systems, e.g., connected by a network. The memory medium may store program instructions (e.g., embodied as a computer program) that are executable by one or more processors.

Carrier medium-a memory medium as described above, and a physical transmission medium such as a bus, a network, and/or other physical transmission medium that conveys signals such as electrical, electromagnetic, or digital signals.

Programmable hardware element — includes various hardware devices that include a plurality of programmable functional blocks connected via programmable interconnects. Examples include FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays), PLDs (programmable logic devices), FPOAs (field programmable object arrays), and CPLDs (complex PLDs). Programmable function blocks can range from fine grained (combinatorial logic units or look-up tables) to coarse grained (arithmetic logic units or processor cores). The programmable hardware elements may also be referred to as "configurable logic components".

Computer system — any of various types of computing systems or processing systems, including Personal Computer Systems (PCs), mainframe computer systems, workstations, network appliances, internet appliances, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), television systems, grid computing systems, or other devices or combinations of devices. In general, the term "computer system" may be broadly defined to encompass any device (or combination of devices) having at least one processor that executes instructions from a memory medium.

User Equipment (UE) (or "UE device") -any of various types of computer systems or devices that are mobile or portable and perform wireless communications. Examples of UE devices include mobile phones or smart phones (e.g., iphones)^TMBased on Android^TMTelephone), portable gaming devices (e.g., Nintendo DS)^TM、PlayStation Portable^TM、Gameboy Advance^TM、iPhone^TM) Laptop, wearable device (e.g., smart watch, smart glasses), PDA, portable internet applianceA music player, a data storage device, other handheld devices, automobiles and/or motor vehicles, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) (e.g., drone), a UAV controller (UAC), etc. In general, the term "UE" or "UE device" may be broadly defined to encompass any electronic, computing, and/or telecommunications device (or combination of such devices) that is easily transportable by a user and capable of wireless communication.

Wireless device-any of various types of computer systems or devices that perform wireless communication. The wireless device may be portable (or mobile) or may be stationary or fixed in some location. A UE is one example of a wireless device.

Communication device-any of various types of computer systems or devices that perform communication, where the communication may be wired or wireless. The communication device may be portable (or mobile) or may be stationary or fixed in some location. A wireless device is one example of a communication device. A UE is another example of a communication device.

Base station-the term "base station" has its full scope in its ordinary sense and includes at least a wireless communication station installed at a fixed location and used to communicate as part of a wireless telephone system or radio system.

Processing element (or processor) — refers to various elements or combination of elements capable of performing functions in a device, such as a user equipment or a cellular network device. The processing elements may include, for example: a processor and associated memory, portions or circuitry of individual processor cores, an entire processor core, an individual processor, an array of processors, circuitry such as an ASIC (application specific integrated circuit), programmable hardware elements such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), and any of a variety of combinations thereof.

Channel-the medium used to convey information from a sender (transmitter) to a receiver. It should be noted that the term "channel" as used herein may be considered to be used in a manner that is consistent with the standard for the type of device to which the term is used, as the characteristics of the term "channel" may vary from one wireless protocol to another. In some standards, the channel width may be variable (e.g., depending on device capabilities, band conditions, etc.). For example, LTE may support a scalable channel bandwidth of 1.4MHz to 20 MHz. In contrast, a WLAN channel may be 22MHz wide, while a bluetooth channel may be 1MHz wide. Other protocols and standards may include different definitions for channels. Further, some standards may define and use multiple types of channels, e.g., different channels for uplink or downlink and/or different channels for different purposes such as data, control information, etc.

Band-the term "band" has its ordinary meaning in its full scope and includes at least a segment of spectrum (e.g., the radio frequency spectrum) in which channels are used or set aside for the same purpose.

Auto-refers to an action or operation performed by a computer system (e.g., software executed by a computer system) or device (e.g., circuit, programmable hardware element, ASIC, etc.) without user input directly specifying or performing the action or operation. Thus, the term "automatically" is in contrast to a user manually performing or specifying an operation, wherein the user provides input to directly perform the operation. An automatic process may be initiated by input provided by a user, but subsequent actions performed "automatically" are not specified by the user, i.e., are not performed "manually," where the user specifies each action to be performed. For example, a user filling out an electronic form by selecting each field and providing input specifying information (e.g., by typing information, selecting a check box, radio selection, etc.) is manually filling out the form even though the computer system must update the form in response to user actions. The form may be automatically filled in by a computer system, wherein the computer system (e.g., software executing on the computer system) analyzes the fields of the form and fills in the form without any user entering answers specifying the fields. As indicated above, the user may invoke automatic filling of the form, but not participate in the actual filling of the form (e.g., the user does not manually specify answers to the fields but they are done automatically). This specification provides various examples of operations that are automatically performed in response to actions that have been taken by a user.

About-refers to a value that is close to correct or exact. For example, approximately may refer to a value within 1% to 10% of the exact (or desired) value. It should be noted, however, that the actual threshold (or tolerance) may depend on the application. For example, in some embodiments, "about" may mean within 0.1% of some specified or desired value, while in various other embodiments, the threshold may be, for example, 2%, 3%, 5%, etc., as desired or required by a particular application.

Concurrent-refers to parallel execution or implementation in which tasks, processes, or programs are executed in an at least partially overlapping manner. For example, concurrency may be achieved using "strong" or strict parallelism, where tasks are executed (at least partially) in parallel on respective computing elements; or "weak parallelism" in which tasks are performed in an interleaved fashion (e.g., by performing time-multiplexing of threads).

Configured-various components may be described as "configured to" perform one or more tasks. In such an environment, "configured to" is a broad expression generally meaning "having a" structure "that performs one or more tasks during operation. Thus, a component can be configured to perform a task even when the component is not currently performing the task (e.g., a set of electrical conductors can be configured to electrically connect a module to another module even when the two modules are not connected). In some contexts, "configured to" may be a broad expression generally meaning "having a structure of" circuitry "that performs one or more tasks during operation. Thus, a component can be configured to perform a task even when the component is not currently on. In general, the circuitry forming the structure corresponding to "configured to" may comprise hardware circuitry.

For ease of description, various components may be described as performing one or more tasks. Such description should be construed to include the phrase "configured to". Expressing a component configured to perform one or more tasks is expressly intended to be an interpretation that does not invoke 35u.s.c. § 112(f) on that component.

FIG. 1 and FIG. 2-communication system

Fig. 1 illustrates a simplified example wireless communication system in accordance with some embodiments. It is noted that the system of fig. 1 is only one example of a possible system, and that the features of the present disclosure may be implemented in any of a variety of systems as desired.

As shown, the exemplary wireless communication system includes a base station 102A that communicates with one or more user devices 106A, 106B through 106N, etc., over a transmission medium. Each user equipment may be referred to herein as a "user equipment" (UE). Thus, the user equipment 106 is referred to as a UE or UE device.

The Base Station (BS)102A may be a Base Transceiver Station (BTS) or a cell site (cellular base station) and may include hardware that enables wireless communication with the UEs 106A-106N.

The communication area (or coverage area) of a base station may be referred to as a "cell". Base station 102A and UE 106 may be configured to communicate over a transmission medium utilizing any of a variety of Radio Access Technologies (RATs), also referred to as wireless communication technologies or telecommunication standards, such as GSM, UMTS (associated with, for example, WCDMA or TD-SCDMA air interfaces), LTE-advanced (LTE-a), 5G new air interface (5G NR), HSPA, 3GPP2 CDMA2000 (e.g., 1xRTT, 1xEV-DO, HRPD, eHRPD), and so on. Note that if the base station 102A is implemented in the context of LTE, it may alternatively be referred to as an "eNodeB" or "eNB. Note that if base station 102A is implemented in a 5G NR environment, it may alternatively be referred to as a "gnnodeb" or "gNB.

As shown, the base station 102A may also be equipped to communicate with a network 100 (e.g., a core network of a cellular service provider, a telecommunications network such as a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and/or the internet, among various possibilities). Thus, the base station 102A may facilitate communication between user equipment and/or between user equipment and the network 100. In particular, the cellular base station 102A may provide the UE 106 with various communication capabilities, such as voice, SMS, and/or data services.

Base station 102A and other similar base stations operating according to the same or different cellular communication standards, such as base station 102b.

Thus, although base station 102A may serve as a "serving cell" for UEs 106A-106N as shown in fig. 1, each UE 106 may also be capable of receiving signals from (and possibly within communication range of) one or more other cells (which may be provided by base stations 102B-102N and/or any other base station), which may be referred to as "neighboring cells. Such cells may also be capable of facilitating communication between user equipment and/or between user equipment and network 100. Such cells may include "macro" cells, "micro" cells, "pico" cells, and/or cells providing any of a variety of other granularities of service area sizes. For example, the base stations 102A-B shown in fig. 1 may be macro cells, while the base station 102N may be a micro cell. Other configurations are also possible.

In some embodiments, the base station 102A may be a next generation base station, e.g., a 5G new air interface (5G NR) base station or "gbb". In some embodiments, the gNB may be connected to a legacy Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network and/or to an NR core (NRC)/5G core (5GC) network. Further, the gNB cell may include one or more Transition and Reception Points (TRPs). Further, a UE capable of operating according to the 5G NR may be connected to one or more TRPs within one or more gnbs. For example, base station 102A and one or more other base stations 102 may support joint transmission such that UE 106 may be able to receive transmissions from multiple base stations (and/or multiple TRPs provided by the same base station).

It is noted that the UE 106 is capable of communicating using multiple wireless communication standards. For example, in addition to at least one cellular communication protocol (e.g., GSM, UMTS (associated with, e.g., WCDMA or TD-SCDMA air interfaces), LTE-a, 5G NR, HSPA, 3GPP2 CDMA2000 (e.g., 1xRTT, 1xEV-DO, HRPD, eHRPD), etc.), UE 106 may be configured to communicate using wireless networking (e.g., Wi-Fi) and/or peer-to-peer wireless communication protocols (e.g., bluetooth, Wi-Fi peer-to-peer, etc.). If desired, the UE 106 may also or alternatively be configured to communicate using one or more global navigation satellite systems (GNSS, e.g., GPS or GLONASS), one or more mobile television broadcast standards (e.g., advanced television systems committee-mobile/handheld (ATSC-M/H)), and/or any other wireless communication protocol. Other combinations of wireless communication standards, including more than two wireless communication standards, are also possible.

Fig. 2 illustrates a user equipment 106 (e.g., one of devices 106A-106N) in communication with a base station 102, in accordance with some embodiments. The UE 106 may be a device with cellular communication capabilities, such as a mobile phone, a handheld device, a computer, a laptop, a tablet, a smart watch or other wearable device, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), an unmanned flight controller (UAC), an automobile, or virtually any type of wireless device.

The UE 106 may include a processor (processing element) configured to execute program instructions stored in memory. The UE 106 may perform any of the method embodiments described herein by executing such stored instructions. Alternatively or additionally, the UE 106 may include programmable hardware elements, such as an FPGA (field programmable gate array), an integrated circuit, and/or any of a variety of other possible hardware components configured to perform (e.g., individually or in combination) any of the method embodiments described herein or any portion of any of the method embodiments described herein.

The UE 106 may include one or more antennas for communicating using one or more wireless communication protocols or technologies. In some embodiments, the UE 106 may be configured to communicate using, for example, NR or LTE using at least some shared radios. As additional possibilities, the UE 106 may be configured to communicate using CDMA2000(1xRTT/1xEV-DO/HRPD/eHRPD) or LTE using a single shared radio and/or GSM or LTE using a single shared radio. The shared radio may be coupled to a single antenna or may be coupled to multiple antennas (e.g., for MIMO) for performing wireless communications. In general, the radio components may include any combination of baseband processors, analog Radio Frequency (RF) signal processing circuits (e.g., including filters, mixers, oscillators, amplifiers, etc.), or digital processing circuits (e.g., for digital modulation and other digital processing). Similarly, the radio may implement one or more receive chains and transmit chains using the aforementioned hardware. For example, the UE 106 may share one or more portions of a receive chain and/or a transmit chain among multiple wireless communication technologies, such as those discussed above.

In some embodiments, the UE 106 may include separate transmit and/or receive chains (e.g., including separate antennas and other radios) for each wireless communication protocol with which it is configured to communicate. As another possibility, the UE 106 may include one or more radios shared between multiple wireless communication protocols, as well as one or more radios used exclusively by a single wireless communication protocol. For example, the UE 106 may include a shared radio for communicating with any of LTE or 5G NR (or, in various possibilities, any of LTE or 1xRTT, or any of LTE or GSM), and a separate radio for communicating with each of Wi-Fi and bluetooth. Other configurations are also possible.

FIG. 3-block diagram of a UE

Fig. 3 illustrates an exemplary simplified block diagram of a communication device 106 according to some embodiments. It is noted that the block diagram of the communication device of fig. 3 is only one example of a possible communication device. According to an embodiment, the communication device 106 may be a User Equipment (UE) device, a mobile device or mobile station, a wireless device or wireless station, a desktop computer or computing device, a mobile computing device (e.g., a laptop, notebook, or portable computing device), a tablet, and/or a combination of devices, among others. As shown, the communication device 106 may include a set of components 300 configured to perform core functions. For example, the set of components may be implemented as a system on a chip (SOC), which may include portions for various purposes. Alternatively, the set of components 300 may be implemented as a separate component or set of components for various purposes. The set of components 300 may be coupled (e.g., communicatively; directly or indirectly) to various other circuitry of the communication device 106.

For example, the communication device 106 can include various types of memory (e.g., including a NAND gate (NAND) flash memory 310), input/output interfaces such as a connector I/F320 (e.g., for connecting to a computer system; docking station; charging station; input devices such as a microphone, camera, keyboard; output devices such as a speaker; etc.), a display 360 that can be integrated with or external to the communication device 106, and wireless communication circuitry 330 (e.g., for LTE, LTE-A, NR, UMTS, GSM, CDMA2000, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC, GPS, etc.). In some embodiments, the communication device 106 may include wired communication circuitry (not shown), such as, for example, a network interface card for ethernet.

The wireless communication circuitry 330 may be coupled (e.g., communicatively; directly or indirectly) to one or more antennas, such as one or more antennas 335 as shown. The wireless communication circuitry 330 may include cellular communication circuitry and/or medium-short range wireless communication circuitry, and may include multiple receive chains and/or multiple transmit chains for receiving and/or transmitting multiple spatial streams, such as in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) configuration.

In some embodiments, the cellular communication circuitry 330 may include one or more receive chains (including and/or coupled (e.g., communicatively; directly or indirectly) to dedicated processors and/or radios) of multiple RATs (e.g., a first receive chain for LTE and a second receive chain for 5G NR), as described further below. Further, in some embodiments, the cellular communication circuitry 330 may include a single transmit chain that may be switched between radios dedicated to a particular RAT. For example, a first radio may be dedicated to a first RAT (e.g., LTE) and may communicate with a dedicated receive chain and a transmit chain shared with a second radio. The second radio may be dedicated to a second RAT (e.g., 5G NR) and may communicate with a dedicated receive chain and a shared transmit chain.

The communication device 106 may also include and/or be configured for use with one or more user interface elements. The user interface elements may include any of a variety of elements such as a display 360 (which may be a touch screen display), a keyboard (which may be a discrete keyboard or may be implemented as part of a touch screen display), a mouse, a microphone and/or a speaker, one or more cameras, one or more buttons, and/or any of a variety of other elements capable of providing information to a user and/or receiving or interpreting user input.

The communication device 106 may also include one or more smart cards 345 having SIM (subscriber identity module) functionality, such as one or more UICC cards (one or more universal integrated circuit cards) 345.

As shown, SOC 300 may include a processor 302 that may execute program instructions for communication device 106 and a display circuit 304 that may perform graphics processing and provide display signals to display 360. The one or more processors 302 may also be coupled to a Memory Management Unit (MMU)340 (which may be configured to receive addresses from the one or more processors 302 and translate those addresses to locations in memory (e.g., memory 306, Read Only Memory (ROM)350, NAND flash memory 310), and/or to other circuits or devices, such as display circuitry 304, wireless communication circuitry 330, connector I/F320, and/or display 360. MMU 340 may be configured to perform memory protections and page table translations or settings. In some embodiments, MMU 340 may be included as part of processor 302.

As described above, the communication device 106 may be configured to communicate using wireless and/or wired communication circuitry. As described herein, the communication device 106 may include hardware and software components for implementing any of the various features and techniques described herein. The processor 302 of the communication device 106 may be configured to implement some or all of the features described herein, for example, by executing program instructions stored on a memory medium (e.g., a non-transitory computer-readable memory medium). Alternatively (or in addition), the processor 302 may be configured as a programmable hardware element, such as an FPGA (field programmable gate array) or an ASIC (application specific integrated circuit). Alternatively (or in addition), the processor 302 of the communication device 106, in conjunction with one or more of the other components 300, 304, 306, 310, 320, 330, 340, 345, 350, 360, may be configured to implement some or all of the features described herein.

Further, processor 302 may include one or more processing elements, as described herein. Accordingly, the processor 302 may include one or more Integrated Circuits (ICs) configured to perform the functions of the processor 302. Further, each integrated circuit may include circuitry (e.g., first circuitry, second circuitry, etc.) configured to perform the functions of one or more processors 302.

Further, wireless communications circuitry 330 may include one or more processing elements, as described herein. In other words, one or more processing elements may be included in the wireless communication circuitry 330. Thus, the wireless communication circuitry 330 may include one or more Integrated Circuits (ICs) configured to perform the functions of the wireless communication circuitry 330. Further, each integrated circuit may include circuitry (e.g., first circuitry, second circuitry, etc.) configured to perform the functions of the wireless communication circuitry 330.

FIG. 4-block diagram of a base station

Fig. 4 illustrates an example block diagram of a base station 102 in accordance with some embodiments. It is noted that the base station of fig. 4 is only one example of possible base stations. As shown, base station 102 may include a processor 404 that may execute program instructions for base station 102. Processor 404 may also be coupled to a Memory Management Unit (MMU)440 or other circuit or device that may be configured to receive addresses from processor 404 and translate the addresses to locations in memory (e.g., memory 460 and Read Only Memory (ROM) 450).

The base station 102 may include at least one network port 470. The network port 470 may be configured to couple to a telephone network and provide a plurality of devices, such as the UE device 106, with access to the telephone network as described above in fig. 1 and 2.

The network port 470 (or additional network port) may also or alternatively be configured to couple to a cellular network, such as a core network of a cellular service provider. The core network may provide mobility-related services and/or other services to multiple devices, such as UE device 106. In some cases, the network port 470 may be coupled to a telephone network via a core network, and/or the core network may provide the telephone network (e.g., in other UE devices served by a cellular service provider).

In some embodiments, the base station 102 may be a next generation base station, e.g., a 5G new air interface (5G NR) base station, or "gbb". In such embodiments, base station 102 may be connected to a legacy Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network and/or to an NR core (NRC)/5G core (5GC) network. Further, the base station 102 may be considered a 5G NR cell and may include one or more Transition and Reception Points (TRPs). Further, a UE capable of operating according to the 5G NR may be connected to one or more TRPs within one or more gnbs.

The base station 102 may include at least one antenna 434 and possibly multiple antennas. The at least one antenna 434 may be configured to function as a wireless transceiver and may be further configured to communicate with the UE device 106 via the radio 430. Antenna 434 communicates with radio 430 via communication link 432. Communication chain 432 may be a receive chain, a transmit chain, or both. Radio 430 may be configured to communicate via various wireless communication standards including, but not limited to, 5G NR, LTE-A, GSM, UMTS, CDMA2000, Wi-Fi and the like.

Base station 102 may be configured to communicate wirelessly using a plurality of wireless communication standards. In some cases, base station 102 may include multiple radios that may enable base station 102 to communicate in accordance with multiple wireless communication technologies. For example, as one possibility, base station 102 may include an LTE radio to perform communications according to LTE and a 5G NR radio to perform communications according to 5G NR. In this case, the base station 102 may be capable of operating as both an LTE base station and a 5G NR base station. As another possibility, the base station 102 may include a multi-mode radio capable of performing communications in accordance with any of a number of wireless communication technologies (e.g., 5G NR and LTE, 5G NR and Wi-Fi, LTE and UMTS, LTE and CDMA2000, UMTS and GSM, etc.).

As described further herein subsequently, the base station 102 may include hardware and software components for implementing or supporting implementations of the features described herein. The processor 404 of the base station 102 may be configured to implement or support implementation of some or all of the methods described herein, for example, by executing program instructions stored on a memory medium (e.g., a non-transitory computer-readable memory medium). Alternatively, the processor 404 may be configured as a programmable hardware element such as an FPGA (field programmable gate array), or as an ASIC (application specific integrated circuit), or a combination thereof. Alternatively (or in addition), processor 404 of base station 102, in conjunction with one or more of the other components 430, 432, 434, 440, 450, 460, 470, may be configured to implement or support implementations of some or all of the features described herein.

Further, as described herein, the one or more processors 404 may include one or more processing elements. Accordingly, the processor 404 may include one or more Integrated Circuits (ICs) configured to perform the functions of the processor 404. Further, each integrated circuit may include circuitry (e.g., first circuitry, second circuitry, etc.) configured to perform the functions of one or more processors 404.

Further, radio 430 may include one or more processing elements, as described herein. Thus, radio 430 may include one or more Integrated Circuits (ICs) configured to perform the functions of radio 430. Further, each integrated circuit may include circuitry (e.g., first circuitry, second circuitry, etc.) configured to perform the functions of radio 430.

FIG. 5-block diagram of cellular communication circuitry

Fig. 5 illustrates an exemplary simplified block diagram of a cellular communication circuit according to some embodiments. It is noted that the block diagram of the cellular communication circuit of fig. 5 is only one example of possible cellular communication circuits; other circuits, such as circuits that include or couple to enough antennas for different RATs to perform uplink activity using separate antennas, or circuits that include or couple to fewer antennas, such as circuits that may be shared between multiple RATs, are also possible. According to some embodiments, the cellular communication circuitry 330 may be included in a communication device, such as the communication device 106 described above. As described above, the communication device 106 may be a User Equipment (UE) device, a mobile device or mobile station, a wireless device or wireless station, a desktop computer or computing device, a mobile computing device (e.g., a laptop, notebook, or portable computing device), a tablet, and/or a combination of devices, among others.

The cellular communication circuit 330 may be coupled (e.g., communicatively; directly or indirectly) to one or more antennas, such as antennas 335a-335b and 336 as shown. In some embodiments, the cellular communication circuitry 330 may include dedicated receive chains (including and/or coupled (e.g., communicatively; directly or indirectly) to dedicated processors and/or radios) of multiple RATs (e.g., a first receive chain for LTE and a second receive chain for 5G NR). For example, as shown in fig. 5, the cellular communication circuit 330 may include a first modem 510 and a second modem 520. The first modem 510 may be configured for communication according to a first RAT (such as LTE or LTE-a, for example), and the second modem 520 may be configured for communication according to a second RAT (such as 5G NR, for example).

As shown, the first modem 510 may include one or more processors 512 and a memory 516 in communication with the processors 512. The modem 510 may communicate with a Radio Frequency (RF) front end 530. The RF front end 530 may include circuitry for transmitting and receiving radio signals. For example, the RF front end 530 may include receive circuitry (RX)532 and transmit circuitry (TX) 534. In some embodiments, the receive circuitry 532 may be in communication with a Downlink (DL) front end 550, which may include circuitry for receiving radio signals via the antenna 335 a.

Similarly, the second modem 520 can include one or more processors 522 and memory 526 in communication with the processors 522. The modem 520 may communicate with the RF front end 540. The RF front end 540 may include circuitry for transmitting and receiving radio signals. For example, RF front end 540 may include receive circuitry 542 and transmit circuitry 544. In some embodiments, receive circuitry 542 may be in communication with a DL front end 560, which may include circuitry for receiving radio signals via antenna 335 b.

In some implementations, a switch 570 can couple the transmit circuit 534 to an Uplink (UL) front end 572. Further, a switch 570 can couple transmit circuit 544 to an UL front end 572. UL front end 572 may include circuitry for transmitting radio signals via antenna 336. Accordingly, when the cellular communication circuitry 330 receives an instruction to transmit in accordance with the first RAT (e.g., supported via the first modem 510), the switch 570 may be switched to a first state that allows the first modem 510 to transmit signals in accordance with the first RAT (e.g., via a transmit chain that includes the transmit circuitry 534 and the UL front end 572). Similarly, when the cellular communication circuitry 330 receives an instruction to transmit in accordance with a second RAT (e.g., supported via the second modem 520), the switch 570 can be switched to a second state that allows the second modem 520 to transmit signals in accordance with the second RAT (e.g., via a transmit chain that includes the transmit circuitry 544 and the UL front end 572).

As described herein, the first modem 510 and/or the second modem 520 may include hardware and software components for implementing any of the various features and techniques described herein. The processors 512, 522 may be configured to implement some or all of the features described herein, for example, by executing program instructions stored on a memory medium (e.g., a non-transitory computer-readable memory medium). Alternatively (or in addition), the processors 512, 522 may be configured as programmable hardware elements, such as FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) or as ASICs (application specific integrated circuits). Alternatively (or in addition), the processors 512, 522 may be configured to implement some or all of the features described herein, in conjunction with one or more of the other components 530, 532, 534, 540, 542, 544, 550, 570, 572, 335, and 336.

Further, processors 512, 522 may include one or more processing elements, as described herein. Thus, the processors 512, 522 may include one or more Integrated Circuits (ICs) configured to perform the functions of the processors 512, 522. Further, each integrated circuit may include circuitry (e.g., first circuitry, second circuitry, etc.) configured to perform the functions of the processor 512, 522.

In some embodiments, the cellular communication circuit 330 may include only one transmit/receive chain. For example, the cellular communication circuit 330 may not include the modem 520, the RF front end 540, the DL front end 560, and/or the antenna 335 b. As another example, the cellular communication circuit 330 may not include the modem 510, the RF front end 530, the DL front end 550, and/or the antenna 335 a. In some embodiments, the cellular communication circuit 330 may also not include the switch 570, and the RF front end 530 or the RF front end 540 may communicate, e.g., directly communicate, with the UL front end 572.

FIG. 6-exemplary block diagram of a network element

Fig. 6 illustrates an exemplary block diagram of a network element 600 according to some embodiments. According to some embodiments, network element 600 may implement one or more logical functions/entities of a cellular core network, such as a Mobility Management Entity (MME), a serving gateway (S-GW), an Access and Management Function (AMF), a Session Management Function (SMF), and/or the like. It should be noted that network element 600 of fig. 6 is only one example of a possible network element 600. As shown, core network element 600 may include one or more processors 604 that may execute program instructions of core network element 600. Processor 604 may also be coupled to a Memory Management Unit (MMU)640, which may be configured to receive addresses from processor 604 and translate those addresses to locations in memory (e.g., memory 660 and Read Only Memory (ROM)650), or to other circuits or devices.

Network element 600 may include at least one network port 670. The network port 670 may be configured to couple to one or more base stations and/or other cellular network entities and/or devices. Network element 600 may communicate with base stations (e.g., eNB/gNB) and/or other network entities/devices by way of any of a variety of communication protocols and/or interfaces.

As described further herein subsequently, network element 600 may include hardware and software components for implementing or supporting implementations of features described herein. The processor 604 of the core network element 600 may be configured to implement or support an implementation of some or all of the methods described herein, for example, by executing program instructions stored on a memory medium (e.g., a non-transitory computer-readable memory medium). Alternatively, the processor 604 may be configured as a programmable hardware element such as an FPGA (field programmable gate array) or as an ASIC (application specific integrated circuit) or a combination thereof.

FIG. 7-Beam information for Secondary cell Beam failure recovery

New cellular communication technologies are constantly being developed to increase coverage, better meet various needs and use cases, and for various other reasons. As new cellular communication technologies are developed and deployed, certain features may be included that are new or different from previously developed and deployed cellular communication technologies.

Carrier aggregation and multi-connection communication techniques may include performing communication between a wireless device and a cellular network (e.g., via one or more cellular base stations) using multiple component carriers (possibly including the use of a primary cell and one or more secondary cells).

In addition, at least some cellular communication technologies may utilize beamforming techniques, e.g., to improve the effective transmission range and power of the transmitted signal. To support such beamforming-based cellular communications, it may be important to perform beam management to select and maintain a good beam (or beams) for performing cellular communications (e.g., and possibly for each configured and active component carrier) between a wireless device and a cellular base station.

When a beam failure occurs for a component carrier, it may therefore be important to perform beam failure recovery, for example to identify a new transmit beam that is available for the component carrier. When multiple component carriers are active and a beam failure occurs on a secondary component carrier, the primary component carrier may be utilized to configure beam failure recovery operations, e.g., including communications regarding resources provided to attempt to identify a new transmit beam from a set of candidate transmit beams and to report any identified new transmit beam or beams. However, at least in some cases, it is possible that multiple types of reference signal resources may be configured as part of such beam failure recovery operations, which can potentially lead to ambiguous reports of new transmitted beams identified by the wireless device if the framework for handling such communications is not carefully designed. Accordingly, it may be useful to provide techniques for providing beam information for secondary cell beam failure recovery in a wireless communication system that supports distinguishing reference signal types when reporting new transmit beams identified by a wireless device for secondary cell beam failure recovery.

Fig. 7 is a flow diagram illustrating an example of such a method for providing beam information for secondary cell beam failure recovery in a wireless communication system, at least in accordance with some embodiments. Aspects of the method of fig. 7 may be implemented by a wireless device, such as UE 106 shown in the various figures herein, a base station, such as BS 102 shown in the various figures herein, and/or more generally, in conjunction with any of the computer circuits, systems, devices, elements, or components shown in the above figures, etc., as desired. For example, a processor (and/or other hardware) of such an apparatus may be configured to cause the apparatus to perform any combination of the illustrated method elements and/or other method elements.

In various embodiments, some of the illustrated method elements may be performed concurrently, in a different order than illustrated, may be replaced by other method elements, or may be omitted. Additional elements may also be performed as desired. As shown, the method of fig. 7 may operate as follows.

The wireless device may establish a wireless link with a cellular base station. According to some embodiments, the wireless link may comprise a cellular link according to 5G NR. For example, a wireless device may establish a session with an AMF entity of a cellular network through one or more gnbs that provide radio access to the cellular network. As another possibility, the wireless link may comprise a cellular link according to LTE. For example, a wireless device may establish a session with a mobility management entity of a cellular network through an eNB that provides radio access to the cellular network. Other types of cellular links are also possible according to various embodiments, and a cellular network may also or alternatively operate according to another cellular communication technology (e.g., UMTS, CDMA2000, GSM, etc.).

Establishing the radio link may include establishing an RRC connection with the serving cellular base station in accordance with at least some embodiments. Establishing the first RRC connection may include any of various parameters configured for communication between the wireless device and a cellular base station, establishing environmental information for the wireless device, and/or various other possible features, for example, relating to establishing an air interface for the wireless device for cellular communication with a cellular network associated with the cellular base station. After establishing the RRC connection, the wireless device may operate in an RRC connected state. In some instances, the RRC connection may also be released (e.g., after a certain period of inactivity relative to data communications), in which case the wireless device may operate in an RRC idle state or an RRC inactive state. In some cases, the wireless device may perform a handover (e.g., while in an RRC connected mode) or cell reselection (e.g., while in an RRC idle mode or an RRC inactive mode) to a new serving cell, for example, due to wireless device movement, a change in wireless medium conditions, and/or any of a variety of other possible reasons.

In accordance with at least some embodiments, the wireless device may be configured to communicate with a cellular network via a plurality of component carriers (e.g., including a primary cell and a secondary cell). The wireless device may detect a beam failure on the secondary cell and may send an indication of the beam failure of the secondary cell to the cellular base station (e.g., via the primary cell).

In 702, the cellular base station may configure the wireless device with candidate transmit beam reference signal resources. In some cases, this may include providing a list (or lists) of candidate transmit beam reference signal resources. As one possibility, each such list may include only one type of reference signal resource (e.g., only SSB resources or only CSI-RS resources). In this case, the cellular base station may be able to indicate to the wireless device which list to use to perform new transmission beam identification. This may help avoid ambiguity as to which reference signal type is associated with the reported transmit beam by configuring the wireless device to perform the beam failure recovery using only one type of reference signal.

As another possibility, a list of candidate transmit beam reference signal resources may be provided that may include multiple types of reference signal resources (e.g., both SSB resources and CSI-RS resources). In this case, the wireless device may be configured to perform reporting on any new transmit beam identified from the candidate transmit beam reference signal resource, such that the cellular base station is able to identify the reference signal type of the new transmit beam.

In 704, the wireless device may perform measurements on the candidate transmit beam reference signal resources. The measurements may include Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP), Reference Signal Received Quality (RSRQ), signal-to-interference-and-noise (SINR), and/or any of a variety of other possible measurements, alone or in combination. Based on the measurements, the wireless device may perform beam identification, which may include identifying a new transmit beam, or possibly multiple new transmit beams, or determining that no new transmit beams are identified in the candidate transmit beam. For example, the wireless device may be configured to select the beam (or beams, e.g., up to a configured number) that most closely meets one or more specified criteria for new transmit beam identification. As a possibility, the specified criteria may include having the highest signal strength in the candidate transmit beam and also having a signal strength at least above some absolute signal strength threshold. Any number of other criteria may also or alternatively be used (e.g., one or more metrics may be used in addition to or instead of signal strength), according to various embodiments.

In 706, the wireless device may report the identified transmit beam. This may include providing an indication of the identified transmit beam configured to support the cellular base station, the cellular base station being capable of determining a candidate transmit beam reference signal resource associated with the identified transmit beam, including a type of reference signal of the candidate transmit beam reference signal resource.

For example, in some embodiments, the indication of the new transmission beam may include a reference signal Resource Indicator (RI), such as a Synchronization Signal Block Resource Indicator (SSBRI) or a channel state information reference signal resource indicator (CRI). In some cases, the indication of a separate reference signal resource indicator may be sufficient to allow the cellular base station to identify the reference signal type, e.g., if the candidate transmit beam reference signal resource configured by the cellular base station is limited to only one reference signal type.

Alternatively, if multiple types of reference signal types are included in the candidate transmit beam reference signal resource configured by the cellular base station, the indication of the new transmit beam may include information sufficient to ensure that both the cellular base station and the wireless device have the same understanding of which transmission the wireless device is indicating.

For example, as one possibility, the Candidate Beam Resource Indicator (CBRI) may be defined for the candidate transmit beam reference signal resource configured by the cellular base station, and the indication of the new transmit beam may include the CBRI of the candidate transmit beam reference signal resource associated with the new transmit beam. Note that in at least some cases, one of the defined CBRI values may be associated with the wireless device not identifying a new transmit beam, e.g., providing the wireless device with a mechanism for reporting that the wireless device did not identify any new transmit beams from the candidate transmit beam reference signal resources configured by the cellular base station.

As another possibility, the indication of the new transmit beam may include a reference signal resource indicator (e.g., SSBRI or CRI), and an indicator of a reference signal type associated with the new transmit beam (e.g., to indicate to the cellular base station whether the reference signal resource indicator is SSBRI or CRI).

As another possibility, the indication of the new transmit beam may include a reference signal resource indicator (e.g., SSBRI or CRI) and may be transmitted using resources configured to indicate a reference signal type associated with the new transmit beam. For example, one resource (e.g., PUCCH or PRACH resource) may be configured for SSB-based new beam identification, while another resource may be configured for CSI-RS-based new beam identification.

As another possibility, a plurality of new transmit beams may be identified. In this case, performing reporting on the identified one or more new transmit beams using the specified resources may be one possible mechanism for indicating how many new transmit beams are being reported. For example, one resource (e.g., PUCCH or PRACH resource) may be configured to indicate that the wireless device has identified 1 new beam, another resource may be configured to indicate that the wireless device has identified 2 new beams, and so on.

The cellular base station may receive one or more indications of one or more new transmit beams and may determine to use the one or more new transmit beams to communicate with the wireless device via the secondary cell. Thus, the cellular base station and the wireless device may complete the beam failure recovery procedure and may be able to resume communications via the secondary cell using the one or more new transmission beams.

Thus, using the techniques of fig. 7, beam information may be provided for secondary cell beam failure recovery in a wireless communication system such that the type of reference signal associated with a new transmit beam identified by a wireless device is accurately identified, at least in accordance with some embodiments.

FIGS. 8 through 24 and additional information

Fig. 8-24 illustrate other aspects that may be used in conjunction with the method of fig. 7 if desired. It should be noted, however, that the exemplary details shown in fig. 8-24 and described with respect to these figures are not intended to limit the disclosure as a whole: many variations and alternatives to the details provided below are possible and should be considered within the scope of the present disclosure.

To handle Beam Failure Recovery (BFR) operations in NR Rel-15, it may be the case that the gNB configures a set of Reference Signal (RS) lists, such as Synchronization Signal (SS)/Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH) block (SSB) and/or channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) for new candidate Tx beam identification. Each RS in the candidate beam list may be associated with a Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) resource. When a UE (e.g., UE 1701 of fig. 17) transmits a BFR request (BFRQ) over the PRACH, the new Tx beam information may be implicitly delivered to the gNB by the PRACH resources used. An example of a possible RRC configuration for BFR in NR Rel-15 is shown in fig. 8, where the parameter candidateBeamRSList is configured for new beam identification. In particular, as shown in fig. 8, the UE may be configured with RACH resources and candidate beams for BFR using a BeamFailureRecoveryConfig IE in case of Beam Failure Detection (BFD). See also 3GPP TS38.321, clause 5.1.1). According to some embodiments, the information element may include some or all of the following fields.

For secondary cell (SCell) BFR operation in NR Rel-16, BFRQ and new Tx beam information may be delivered via the primary cell (PCell). And there may be two methods to deliver the new Tx beam information; one may include Uplink Control Information (UCI) or UCI-type methods, and the other may include Medium Access Control (MAC) Control Element (CE) -based methods. The new Tx beam may be based on an SS/PBCH block (SSB) or CSI-RS. It may be the case that the gNB configures a plurality of SSB resources or CSI-RS resources for the candidate Tx beam. And it may be the case that the UE reports an SSB resource indicator (SSBRI) or a CSI-RS resource indicator (CRI) to the gNB side to indicate the new Tx beam that has been identified.

However, one possible problem may include determining how to distinguish the CSI-RS beam or SSB beam in the new Tx beam information delivery. For example, if the gNB configures both SSBs and CSI-RS for the new Tx beam identification, there may be some uncertainty about the new Tx beam information, possibly including whether the reported Tx beam is an SSB beam or a CSI-RS beam. Therefore, it may be useful to introduce a scheme to ensure that the gNB and the UE have the same understanding of the delivered new Tx beam information.

Accordingly, the present disclosure provides such techniques, including various embodiments of SCell BFR operation in a new air interface (NR) system. Embodiments may include mechanisms for delivering MAC CE based BFRQs, and transmission schemes for transmitting gNB responses to BFRQs. Other embodiments are described and/or claimed.

To distinguish the SSB and CSI-RS for the new Tx beam, one possible approach may include imposing some restrictions on the gbb configuration. For example, as one possibility, it may be the case that in candidateBeamRSList, only SSB or only CSI-RS may be configured.

In some embodiments, for SCell BFRs, only SSBs or only CSI-RS may be configured in RRC configuration for new beam identification (e.g., candidateBeamRSList). If the CSI-RS is configured, it may be the case that the UE reports the CRI in the new Tx beam information delivered to the gNB. If SSB is configured, it may be the case that the UE reports SSBRI in the new Tx beam information delivered to the gNB.

In some embodiments, the gNB may be capable of configuring multiple instances of candidatebeamrslsts, where each list may include an SSB group or a CSI-RS group, and the corresponding list for the UE to report new beam information may be indicated by DCI or MAC CE or RRC signaling.

In some embodiments, for SCell BFR, in RRC configuration for new beam identification (e.g., candidaberamscl), the SSB and/or CSI-RS may be configured, and a Candidate Beam Resource Indicator (CBRI) may be defined to indicate one RS resource contained in a set of reference signal resources provided by candidaberamscl including the SSB and/or CSI-RS. In this embodiment, it may be the case that the UE reports the CBRI in the new Tx beam information delivered to the gNB (e.g., by UCI/UCI class or MAC-CE). Fig. 9 is various aspects of such a method according to some embodiments. As shown in fig. 9, the candidate beam list may include 3 SSBs and 3 CSI-RSs. In this case, it may be the case that the CBRI has 3 bits, e.g. to support reporting of any candidate beam. When the UE cannot identify a new beam, a default CBRI value may be defined and considered to indicate "no new beam identified".

In another set of embodiments, for SCell BFRs, in RRC configuration for new beam identification (e.g., candaberamslist), it may be the case that SSB and/or CSI-RS may also be configured. In this case, when the UE transmits new Tx beam information through UCI/UCI class or MAC CE, the new Tx beam information may include a one-bit indicator plus the reference signal resource indicator. The reference signal resource indicator may be an SSBRI or a CRI, and the one-bit indicator may be used to indicate the type of the reference signal resource indicator (e.g., whether it is an SSBRI or a CRI).

In another set of embodiments, it may be the case that the UE may report whether the new beam is identified based on SSB or CSI-RS when delivering a beam failure event. In one example, one PUCCH/PRACH resource may be configured for SSB-based new beam identification and another PUCCH/PRACH resource may be used for CSI-RS-based new beam identification. The UE can then select one of them to report, implicitly indicating whether the new beam is identified based on SSB or CSI-RS.

In yet another set of embodiments, for SCell BFR, the UE may report several new Tx beam information (e.g., N Tx beams) to the gNB through UCI/UCI class or MAC-CE. The value of N may be configurable or predefined. In some cases, N may be specifically 1. Other values are also possible.

In another set of embodiments, the UE may be able to report the number of new beams to report when a beam failure event is delivered. In one example, one PUCCH/PRACH resource may be used to indicate that the UE identifies 1 new beam, another PUCCH/PRACH resource may be used to indicate that the UE identifies 2 new beams, and so on.

Beam management may refer to a set of L1/L2 procedures to acquire and maintain a set of transmission/reception points (TRPs or trxps) and/or UE beams available for DL and UL transmission/reception. Beam management may include various operations or processes such as beam determination, beam management, beam reporting, and beam scanning operations/processes. The beam determination may refer to TRxP or the ability of the UE to select its own Tx/Rx beam. Beam measurement may refer to the ability of a TRP or UE to measure characteristics of a received beamformed signal. Beam reporting may refer to the ability of a UE to report information of beamformed signals based on beam measurements. Beam scanning may refer to an operation of covering a spatial region in which beams are transmitted and/or received during a time interval in a predetermined manner.

According to some embodiments, the Tx/Rx beam correspondence at TRxP may be considered to be true if at least one of the following conditions is met: the TRxP is capable of determining a TRxP Rx beam for uplink reception based on downlink measurements on one or more Tx beams of the TRxP by the UE; and the TRxP is capable of determining a TRxP Tx beam for downlink transmission based on uplink measurements by the TRxP on one or more Rx beams of the TRxP. Similarly, it may be the case that the Tx/Rx beam correspondence at the UE is considered to be true if at least one of the following is satisfied: the UE is capable of determining a UE Tx beam for uplink transmission based on downlink measurements by the UE on one or more Rx beams of the UE; the UE is able to determine a UE Rx beam for downlink reception based on the indication of TRxP (based on uplink measurements on one or more Tx beams of the UE); and supports capability indication of UE beam correspondence related information for TRxP.

In some implementations, the DL beam management may include processes P-1, P-2, and P-3. Procedure P-1 may be used to enable UE measurements on different TRxP Tx beams to support selection of TRxP Tx beam/UE Rx beams. For beamforming at TRxP, process P-1 may generally include intra/inter TRxP Tx beam scanning from different beam sets. For beamforming at the UE, process P-1 may generally include UE Rx beam scanning from different beam sets.

Procedure P-2 may be used to enable UE measurements on different TRxP Tx beams to possibly change inter/intra-TRxP Tx beams. Process P-2 may be a special case of process P-1, where process P-2 is used for a possibly smaller set of beams for beam refinement than process P-1. For example, in case the UE uses receive beamforming, procedure P-3 may be used to enable UE measurements on the same TRxP Tx beam to change the UE Rx beam. The processes P-1, P-2, and P-3 may be used for aperiodic beam reporting.

UE measurements based on RS for beam management (e.g., at least CSI-RS) are made of K beams (where K is the total number of configured beams), and the UE may report measurements of N selected Tx beams (where N may or may not be a fixed number). RS-based procedures performed for mobility purposes may not be excluded. If N < K, the beam information to be reported may include measurement quantities of N beams and information indicating N DL Tx beams. Other information or data may be included in or with the beam information. When a UE is configured with K '> 1 non-zero power (NZP) CSI-RS resources, the UE may report N' CSI-RS resource indicators (CRIs).

For beam failure detection, the gNB may configure the UE with beam failure detection reference signals, and it may be that the UE declares a beam failure to be present when the number of beam failure instance indications from the physical layer reaches a configuration threshold within a configuration period. After detecting the beam failure, the UE may trigger BFR by initiating a random access procedure on the Pcell, and may select an appropriate beam to perform BFR (possibly, the UE may prioritize certain beams if the gNB already provides dedicated random access resources for them). When the random access procedure is completed, the BFR may be considered complete.

The beam failure detection may trigger a mechanism to recover from the beam failure, which may be referred to as "beam recovery," "BFRQ process," or the like. A beam failure event may occur when the quality of the beam pair link of the associated control channel falls below a threshold, when a timeout of an associated timer occurs, or the like. When a beam failure occurs, a beam recovery mechanism may be triggered. The network may explicitly configure resources for the UE for UL transmission of signals for recovery purposes. The configuration of resources may be supported in case the base station (e.g., TRP, gNB, etc.) listens from all or part of the directions (e.g., random access area). The UL transmissions/resources used for reporting beam failure may be located in the same time instance as the Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) or resources orthogonal to the PRACH resources, or at a different time instance (configurable for the UE) than the PRACH. Transmission of DL signals may be supported to allow the UE to monitor the beams for identification of new potential beams.

A beam failure may be indicated if one, more, or all of the serving PDCCH beams fail. When a beam failure is declared, a beam failure recovery request procedure may be initiated. For example, when a beam failure is detected on the serving SSB/CSI-RS, a beam failure recovery request procedure may be used to indicate the serving gNB (or TRP) to the new SSB or CSI-RS. The beam failure may be detected by lower layers and indicated to a Medium Access Control (MAC) entity of the UE.

Beam management may also include providing or not providing beam related indications. When providing such beam-related indications, information related to UE-side beamforming/reception procedures for CSI-RS based measurements may be indicated to the UE through the QCL. The same or different beams and corresponding data channel transmissions on the control channel may be supported. The indication of the DL beam may be based on a Transmission Configuration Indication (TCI) status. The TCI status may be indicated in a TCI list configured by a Radio Resource Control (RRC) and/or Medium Access Control (MAC) Control Element (CE).

When the collectionRadio link quality over all configured RS resources in (a) is compared to Q_{out_LR}When bad, it may be the case that layer 1 of the UE should send a beam failure instance indication of the cell to higher layers. A layer 3 filter may be applied to the beam fault instance indication. Executable target set Beam fault instance evaluation of the configured RS resource in (1). It may be that two consecutive indications from layer 1 are at least by T_{Indication_interval_BFD}And (4) separating. As a possibility, when DRX is not used, T_{Indication_interval_BFD}May be max (2ms, T)_BFD-RS,M) Wherein T is_BFD-RS,MFor a set of access cellsIf all configured RS resources in the set have the shortest periodCollectionThe RS resource in (1) is SSB, it can correspond to T_SSBOr if aggregatedThe RS resource in (1) is CSI-RS, it may correspond to T_CSI-RS. As another possibility, when DRX is used, if DRX cycle _ length is less than or equal to 320ms, then T_{Indication_interval_BFD}May be max (1.5 x DRX _ cycle _ length,1.5 x T_BFD-RS,M) And if the DRX cycle _ length is greater than 320ms, T_{Indication_interval}Is DRX _ cycle _ length.

The beam failure recovery request may be delivered over dedicated PRACH or PUCCH resources. If the random access procedure is initialized for beam failure recovery and if contention-free random access resources of beam failure recovery requests associated with either the SSBs and/or the CSI-RS and contention-free PRACH opportunities are configured, the UE can select a random access preamble corresponding to a selected SSB of the associated SSBs having a SS-RSRP-Threshold SSB higher than the CSI-RSRP in the associated CSI-RS or a selected CSI-RS of the associated CSI-RS having a CSI-RSRP higher than the cfra-csirs-dedicatedcrach-Threshold, and can transmit the random access preamble on a next available PRACH opportunity from the PRACH opportunities corresponding to the selected SSB allowed by the constraints given by the ra-SSB-OccasionMaskIndex (if configured), or from the PRACH opportunities in the ra-occasioninionlist corresponding to the selected CSI-RS, and the PRACH occasion should be randomly selected with equal probability among the PRACH occasions associated with the selected SSB or the selected CSI-RS that occur simultaneously but on different subcarriers. The UE may stop monitoring for the random access response if a contention-free random access preamble for the beam failure recovery request is transmitted and if a PDCCH addressed to the C-RNTI of the UE is received.

For beam measurement, the UE (in RRC _ CONNECTED mode) may measure one or more beams of the cell and may calculate an average of the measurement results (e.g., power values) to derive the cell quality. In doing so, the UE may be configured to consider a subset of the detection beams, such as the N best beams above an absolute threshold. Filtering may occur at the physical layer to derive beam quality and then at the RRC level to derive cell quality from multiple beams. The cell quality from the beam measurements can be derived in the same way for the serving cell and the non-serving cell. The measurement report may contain measurements of the X best beams if the UE is configured to be done by the gNB.

The UE may derive cell measurements by measuring one or more beams associated with each cell as configured by the network. For all cell measurements in RRC _ CONNECTED mode, it may be the case that the UE applies layer 3 filtering before using the measurements to evaluate reporting criteria and measurement reports. For cell measurements, it may be the case that the network may configure RSRP, RSRQ, and/or SINR as the trigger quantities. The reported quantity may be the same as the trigger quantity or combination of quantities (e.g., RSRP and RSRQ; RSRP and SINR; RSRQ and SINR; RSRP, RSRQ and SINR).

The network may also configure the UE to report measurement information for each beam, which may include, among various possibilities, measurements for each beam with the corresponding beam identification or only the beam identification. The UE may apply layer 3 beam filtering if the beam measurement information is configured to be included in the measurement report. The exact layer 1 filtering of the beam measurements used to derive the cell measurement results may depend on the implementation.

For example, if the UE is configured to be done by the gNB, the measurement report may contain the measurement results for the X best beams. For channel state estimation purposes, the UE may be configured to measure CSI-RS resources and estimate the downlink channel state based on the CSI-RS measurements. For example, the UE may feed back the estimated channel state to the gNB for link adaptation.

An exemplary measurement model is shown in fig. 10. As shown in fig. 10, point a includes measurements (e.g., beam-specific samples) internal to the PHY. The layer 1(L1) filtering includes an internal layer 1 filtering circuit for filtering the input measured at point a. Exact filtering mechanism and in PHYHow the measurements are actually performed may be a particular implementation. The measurement (e.g., beam specific measurement) is filtered by L1 to layer 3(L3) beam filtering circuitry and beam consolidation/selection circuitry at point A ¹Is reported.

The beam consolidation/selection circuitry includes circuitry to consolidate beam specific measurements to derive cell quality. For example, if N>1, otherwise when N is 1, the best beam measurement can be selected to derive the cell quality. The configuration of the beams is provided by RRC signaling. The measurements derived from the beam specific measurements (e.g., cell quality) are then reported to L3 filtering for the cell quality circuit after beam consolidation/selection. In some embodiments, the reporting period at point B may be equal to point a¹One measurement cycle of (a).

The L3 filtering for the cell quality circuit is configured to filter the measurements provided at point B. The configuration of the layer 3 filter is provided by the aforementioned RRC signaling or by different/separate RRC signaling. In some embodiments, the filtered reporting period at point C may be equal to one measurement period at point B. The measurements are provided to the evaluation of the reporting criteria circuit at point C after processing in the layer 3 filter circuit. In some embodiments, the reporting rate may be the same as the reporting rate at point B. The measurement input may be used to report one or more evaluations of the criteria.

The evaluation of the reporting criteria circuit may be configured to check whether an actual measurement report is required at point D. The evaluation may be based on more than one measurement flow at reference point C. In one example, the evaluation may involve a comparison between different measurements, such as the measurement provided at point C and point C ¹And the other measurement provided. In some embodiments, the UE may at least every time at point C, at point C¹And evaluating the reporting criteria when reporting new measurements. The reporting criteria configuration is provided by the RRC signaling described above (UE measurements) or by a different/separate RRC signaling. After evaluation, the measurement report information is sent (e.g. as a message) on the radio interface at point D.

Refer back to point A¹Will be at point A¹The measurements are provided to an L3 beam filter circuit, which isConfigured to perform beam filtering of the provided measurements (e.g., beam-specific measurements). The configuration of the beam filter is provided by the RRC signaling described above or by different/separate RRC signaling. In some embodiments, the filtered reporting period at point E may be equal to point a¹One measurement cycle of (a). The K beams correspond to measurements of new air interface (NR) Synchronization Signal (SS) block (SSB) resources or channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resources configured for L3 mobility by the gNB and detected by the UE at L1.

After processing in the beam filter measurements (e.g., beam specific measurements), the measurements are provided to a beam selection for a reporting circuit at point E. This measurement is used as an input to select the X measurements to be reported. In some embodiments, the reporting rate may be comparable to point a ¹The reporting rate is the same. The beam selection for the beam reporting circuitry is configured to select X measurements from the measurements provided at point E. The configuration of this module is provided by the aforementioned RRC signaling or by different/separate RRC signaling. The beam measurement information included in the measurement report is sent or scheduled for transmission on the radio interface at point F.

The L1 filtering introduces a certain level of measurement averaging. The exact way and time that the UE performs the required measurements is specific to the implementation of the point at which the output at B meets the predefined performance requirements. The L3 filtering and related parameters for cell quality do not introduce any delay in the availability of samples between B and C. Measurement C at Point C¹Is an input used in event evaluation. The L3 beam filtering and related parameters do not introduce any delay in the availability of samples between E and F.

The measurement report comprises a measurement identity of the associated measurement configuration that triggered the report; the cell and beam measurements to be included in the measurement report are configured by the network (e.g., using RRC signaling); the number of non-serving cells to report may be limited by the configuration made by the network; cells belonging to the black list configured by the network are not used for event evaluation and reporting, and conversely, when the white list is configured by the network, only the cells belonging to the white list are used for event evaluation and reporting; and the beam measurements to be included in the measurement reports are configured by the network (only the beam identifier, the measurement result and the beam identifier, or no beam report).

The intra-frequency neighbor (cell) measurements and inter-frequency neighbor (cell) measurements may include SSB-based measurements and CSI-RS-based measurements. For SSB-based measurements, one measurement object may correspond to one SSB, and the UE may treat different SSBs as different cells. The measurement may be defined as an SSB-based intra-frequency measurement, provided that the center frequency of the SSB of the serving cell and the center frequency of the SSB of the neighboring cell are the same, and the subcarrier spacing of the two SSBs is also the same. The measurement may be defined as a CSI-RS based intra-frequency measurement, provided that the bandwidth of the CSI-RS resource on the neighboring cell configured for measurement is within the bandwidth of the CSI-RS resource on the serving cell configured for measurement, and the subcarrier spacing of the two CSI-RS resources is the same.

Inter-frequency neighbor (cell) measurements may include SSB-based inter-frequency measurements and CSI-RS-based inter-frequency measurements. For SSB-based measurements, one measurement object may correspond to one SSB, and the UE may treat different SSBs as different cells. The SSB-based inter-frequency measurement is defined as an SSB-based inter-frequency measurement if the center frequency of the SSB of the serving cell and the center frequency of the SSB of the neighboring cell are different or the subcarrier spacing of the two SSBs is different. The CSI-RS based inter-frequency measurement is defined as CSI-RS based inter-frequency measurement, provided that a bandwidth of a CSI-RS resource on a neighboring cell configured for measurement is not within a bandwidth of a CSI-RS resource on a serving cell configured for measurement, or that subcarrier spacing of the two CSI-RS resources is different.

Whether the measurement is non-gap-assisted or gap-assisted may depend on the capability of the UE, the active BWP of the UE and the current operating frequency. In a non-gap-assisted scenario, the UE is able to perform such measurements without measurement gaps. In a gap-assisted scenario, it may be the case that the UE cannot be assumed to be able to perform such measurements without measurement gaps.

According to some embodiments, the UE may be configured with a list of up to M TCI-State configurations within a higher layer parameter PDSCH-Config to decode PDSCH from detected PDCCH with DCI for the UE and a given serving cell, where M depends on UE capabilities. Each TCI-State may include parameters for configuring a quasi co-location relationship between one or two downlink reference signals of the PDSCH and the DM-RS port. The quasi co-location relationship may be configured by the higher layer parameter qcl-Type1 of the first DL RS and the qcl-Type2 of the second DL RS (if configured). For the case of two DL RSs, it may be the case that the QCL types are not the same whether the references are for the same DL RS or for different DL RSs. The quasi-co-located Type corresponding to each DL RS may be given by the higher layer parameter QCL-Type in QCL-Info, and may take one of the following values: QCL-type A: { doppler shift, doppler spread, mean delay, mean spread }; QCL-type B: { doppler shift, doppler spread }; QCL-TypeC: { mean delay, doppler shift }; QCL-type D: { space Rx parameters }.

The UE may receive an activation command for mapping up to 8 TCI states to codepoints of the DCI field 'Transmission Configuration Indication'. When transmitting the HARQ-ACK corresponding to the PDSCH carrying the activation command in the time slot n, it may be the case that the time slot should be usedInitially, the indicated mapping between TCI state and codepoint of the DCI field Transmission Configuration Indication' is applied. After the UE receives the higher layer configuration of the TCI state, and before receiving the activation command, the UE may assume that the DM-RS port of the PDSCH of the serving cell is quasi co-located with the SS/PBCH block determined with respect to "QCL-type a" and also with respect to "QCL-type d" when applicable during the initial access procedure.

If the UE is configured with a higher layer parameter TCI-PresentInDCI with CORESET to "enabled" for the scheduled PDSCH, the UE may assume that the TCI field is present in DCI format 1_1 of the PDCCH transmitted on CORESET. If the TCI-PresentInDCI is not configured for CORESET scheduling PDSCH or PDSCH is scheduled by DCI format 1_0, to determine PDSCH antenna port quasi co-location, the UE may assume the TCI state of PDSCH is the same as the TCI state applied to CORESET for PDCCH transmission.

If TCI-PresentInDCI is set to "enabled", when PDSCH is scheduled by DCI format 1_1, it may be the case that the UE uses TCI-State according to the value of the 'Transmission Configuration Indication' field in the detected PDCCH with DCI for determining PDSCH antenna port quasi-co-location. If the time Offset between the reception of the DL DCI and the corresponding PDSCH is equal to or greater than a Threshold-scheduled-Offset, where the Threshold is based on the reported UE capabilities, the UE may assume that the DM-RS port of the PDSCH of the serving cell is quasi co-located with the RS in the TCI state with respect to the QCL type parameter given by the indicated TCI state.

For both cases where TCI-PresentInDCI is set to "enabled" and TCI-PresentInDCI is not configured, if the Offset between the reception of DL DCI and the corresponding PDSCH is less than the Threshold-scheduled-Offset, the UE may assume that the QCL parameter of the PDCCH-RS port of the PDSCH of the serving cell is quasi co-located with the RS in the TCI state with respect to the PDCCH quasi co-location indication for the lowest CORESET-ID in the most recent slot in which one or more CORESETs within the active BWP of the serving cell are configured for the UE. If none of the configured TCI states contains "QCL-type", it is possible that the UE obtains other QCL hypotheses from the indicated TCI state of its scheduled PDSCH, regardless of the time offset between the reception of DL DCI and the corresponding PDSCH.

For periodic CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with higher layer parameters trs-Info, it may be the case that the UE expects the TCI-State to indicate one of the following quasi co-location types:

"QCL-TypeC" with SS/PBCH blocks and "QCL-TypeD" with the same SS/PBCH blocks, when applicable, or

-QCL-TypeC with SS/PBCH blocks and, where applicable, "QCL-TypeD" with CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with a higher layer parameter repetition.

For aperiodic CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with higher layer parameters trs-Info, it is possible that the UE expects the TCI-State to indicate a "QCL-type a" with periodic CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with higher layer parameters trs-Info and, when applicable, to indicate a "QCL-type" with the same periodic CSI-RS resources.

For CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set which are not configured with the higher layer parameter trs-Info and which are not configured with the higher layer parameter repetition, it may be the case that the UE expects the TCI-State to indicate one of the following quasi co-located types:

"QCL-type a" with CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with higher layer parameters trs-Info, and "QCL-type d" with SS/PBCH blocks, when applicable, or

-QCL-type a 'with CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with higher layer parameters trs-Info, and QCL-type d' with CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with higher layer parameters repetition, when applicable, or

-a "QCL-type b" with CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with higher layer parameters trs-Info when QCL-type is not applicable.

For CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with a higher layer parameter repetition, it may be the case that the UE expects the TCI-State to indicate one of the following quasi co-location types:

-QCL-type a "with CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with higher layer parameters trs-Info, and when applicable, QCL-type d" with the same CSI-RS resources, or

-QCL-type a 'with CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with higher layer parameters trs-Info, and QCL-type d' with CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with higher layer parameters repetition, when applicable, or

-QCL-type c with SS/PBCH block, and QCL-type d with the same SS/PBCH block, when applicable.

For DM-RS of PDCCH, it is possible that the UE expects the TCI-State to indicate one of the following quasi co-located types:

-QCL-type a "with CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with higher layer parameters trs-Info, and when applicable, QCL-type d" with the same CSI-RS resources, or

-QCL-type a 'with CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with higher layer parameters trs-Info, and QCL-type d' with CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with higher layer parameters repetition, when applicable, or

-when "QCL-type" is not applicable, "QCL-type a" with CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set that are not configured with the higher layer parameter trs-Info and that are not configured with the higher layer parameter repetition.

For DM-RS of PDSCH, it is possible that the UE expects the TCI-State to indicate one of the following quasi co-located types:

-QCL-type a "with CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with higher layer parameters trs-Info, and when applicable, QCL-type d" with the same CSI-RS resources, or

-QCL-type a 'with CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with higher layer parameters trs-Info, and QCL-type d' with CSI-RS resources in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set configured with higher layer parameters repetition, when applicable, or

-QCL-type of CSI-RS resource in NZP-CSI-RS-resources set with no higher layer parameters trs-Info configured and no repetition configured, and QCL-type of the same CSI-RS resource when applicable.

The UE may be based on the set as specified hereinTo evaluate the downlink quality of the serving cell in order to detect beam failure instances. Collection The RS resources in (a) may be periodic CSI-RS resources and/or SSBs. It may be that the UEThere is no need to perform beam failure detection outside of the active DL BWP. In the collectionCan estimate the radio link quality and compare it with a threshold Q on each RS resource in the UE_{out_LR}A comparison is made in order to access the downlink radio link quality of the serving cell.

Threshold Q_{out_LR}BLER, which may be defined as the inability to reliably receive a downlink radio level link and may correspond to a hypothetical PDCCH transmission_outLevel of block error rate. For SSB-based beam fault detection, Q, at least in accordance with some embodiments_{out_LR_SSB}May be derived based on the hypothetical PDCCH transmission parameters listed in the table shown in fig. 11. For CSI-RS based beam failure detection, Q, at least in accordance with some embodiments_{out_LR_CSI-RS}May be derived based on the hypothetical PDCCH transmission parameters listed in the table shown in fig. 12.

The UE may be based on the set as specified hereinTo perform L1-RSRP measurements in order to detect candidate beams. CollectionThe RS resources in (a) may be periodic CSI-RS resources and/or SSBs. It may be that the UE does not need to perform candidate beam detection outside the active DL BWP. In the collectionOn each RS resource in the UE may perform L1-RSRP measurements and compare them with a threshold Q _{in_LR}A comparison is made for selecting a new beam for beam failure recovery. Threshold Q_{in_LR}May correspond to the value of the high level parameter candidateBeamThreshold.

As alluded to previously herein, for a serving cell, a set of periodic CSI-RS resource configuration indices may be provided for a UE by a higher layer parameter failureDetectionResourceAnd providing the UE with a set of periodic CSI-RS resource configuration indices and/or SS/PBCH block indices by a high-level parameter candidRSList of radio link quality measurements on the serving cellIf the UE is not provided with the high-layer parameter failureDetectionResource, the UE may determine the setPeriodic CSI-RS resource configuration indices are included that have the same value as the RS indices in the RS set indicated by the higher layer parameter TCI-states of the corresponding set of control resources used by the UE to monitor the PDCCH. UE expectable setIncludes up to two RS indices, and sets if there are two RS indices in the TCI stateAn RS index may be included with the QCL-type configuration for the corresponding TCI state. The UE may desire to be in the setWith a single port RS. Threshold Q_out,LRAnd Q_in,LRMay correspond to the application for Q, respectively_outA default value for the high-level parameter rlmllnsyncoutofsyncthreshold and a value provided by the high-level parameter rsrp-threshold ssb.

The physical layer in the UE may be directed to the threshold Q_out,LRResource allocation set ofTo evaluate the radio link quality. For collectionsThe UE may be nothing more thanThe radio link quality is evaluated according to a periodic CSI-RS resource configuration or SS/PBCH block quasi co-located with DM-RS received by PDCCH monitored by the UE. UE may be Q_in,LRThe threshold is applied to the L1-RSRP measurements obtained from the SS/PBCH block. The UE may scale Q after scaling the respective CSI-RS receive power with the value provided by the higher layer parameter powerControlOffsetSS_in,LRThe threshold is applied to the L1-RSRP measurements obtained for the CSI-RS resources.

Aggregation when UE is used to evaluate radio link qualityRadio link quality ratio threshold Q of all corresponding resource configurations in_out,LRWhen bad, the physical layer in the UE may provide an indication to higher layers. When radio link quality ratio threshold Q_out,LRWhen bad, the physical layer may inform the higher layers, where the set used by the UE to evaluate the radio link qualityThe periodicity is determined by the periodic CSI-RS configuration in (1) or a maximum value between the shortest period in the SS/PBCH block and 2 msec.

Upon request of a higher layer, the UE may provide the higher layer with the from-setAnd/or SS/PBCH block index and a corresponding threshold Q greater than or equal to_in,LRCorresponding L1-RSRP measurement.

The set of control resources may be provided to the UE over a link to a set of search spaces provided by a higher layer parameter, recoverysearchspace id, for monitoring the PDCCH in the set of control resources. If the UE is provided with the higher layer parameter recoverySearchSpaceId, it may be that the UE does not desire to be provided with another set of search spaces for monitoring the PDCCH in the control resource set associated with the set of search spaces provided by recoverySearchSpaceId.

The UE may receive a configuration for PRACH transmission via a higher layer parameter PRACH-resourcededicated bfr. For PRACH transmission in time slot n and according toWith the index q provided by a higher layer_newAssociated periodic CSI-RS resource configuration or antenna port quasi co-location parameters associated with SS/PBCH blocks, the UE may monitor the PDCCH in the search space provided by the higher layer parameter recoverysercyseidseideid for detecting a DCI format with CRC scrambled by C-RNTI or MCS-C-RNTI starting from slot n +4 within a window configured by the higher layer parameter BeamFailureRecoveryConfig. For PDCCH monitoring and corresponding PDSCH reception, the UE may assume the same index q_newThe associated antenna port quasi co-location parameters are the same until the UE receives an activation of the TCI status or any of the parameters TCI-statesdcch-ToAddlist and/or TCI-statesdcch-toreaselist through a higher layer. After the UE detects a DCI format with CRC scrambled by C-RNTI or MCS-C-RNTI in the search space set provided by the retrievysercchspace id, the UE may continue to monitor PDCCH candidates in the search space set provided by the retrievesercchspace until the UE receives a MAC CE activation command for TCI state or higher layer parameters TCI-statepdcch-ToAddlist and/or TCI-statepdcch-torelist.

If the MAC entity receives a beam failure indication from the lower layers, the MAC entity may start a beam failure recovery timer (beamfailure recovery timer) and initiate a random access procedure. If the beamFailureRecoveryTimer expires, the MAC entity may indicate a BFRQ failure to the upper layer. If a DL allocation or UL grant is received (e.g., on PDCCH addressed for cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI)), the MAC entity may stop and reset the beamFailureRecoveryTimer and consider the BFRQ procedure to be successfully completed.

For SSB-based beam failure detection, the UE may evaluate the last T_{Evaluate_BFD_SSB}[ms]Set of in-period estimatesWhether the downlink radio link quality on the configured SSB resource in (a) becomes greater than T_{Evaluate_BFD_SSB}[ms]Threshold value Q in period_{out_LR_SSB}And (4) poor. At least as one possibility, T may be defined for 3GPP frequency range 1(FR1) in the table shown in fig. 13_{Evaluate_BFD_SSB}The value of (c). At least as one possibility, T may be defined for 3GPP frequency range 2(FR2) with N ═ 1 in the table shown in fig. 14_{Evaluate_BFD_SSB}If the UE is not provided with the high layer parameter failureDetectionResource but is provided with the high layer parameter TCI-state for PDCCH SSB with QCL-type d, or if the SSB configured for BFD is QCL-type d with DM-RS for PDCCH, and the QCL association is known to the UE, or if the SSB configured for BFD is QCL-type d and time division multiplexed (TDMed) to the CSI-RS resource configured for L1-RSRP reporting, and the QCL association is known to the UE and CSI reporting with L1-RSRP measurement has been made for the SSB configured for BFD within a specific time.

For FR1, it may be the case that P ═ 1/(1-T)_SSBMGRP) when in the monitored cell there are measurement gaps configured for intra-frequency, inter-frequency or inter-RAT measurements that overlap some but not all occasions of the SSB; and P is 1, when in the monitored cell there is no measurement gap that overlaps with any occasion of the SSB.

For FR2, it may be the case that P ═ 1/(1-T)_SSB/T_SMTCperiod) When BFD-RS does not overlap with the measurement gap and BFD-RS partially overlaps with SMTC timing (T)_SSB<T_SMTCperiod). P may be P_{sharing factor}When the BFD-RS does not overlap the measurement gap and the BFD-RS completely overlaps the SMTC period (T)_SSB＝T_SMTCperiod). P may be 1/(1-T)_SSB/MGRP-T_SSB/T_SMTCperiod) When BFD-RS partially overlaps the measurement gap and BFD-RS partially overlaps the SMTC opportunity (T)_SSB<T_SMTCperiod) And the SMTC timing does not overlap with the measurement gap and T_SMTCperiodNot equal to MGRP or T_SMTCperiodMGRP and T_SSB<0.5*T_SMTCperiod. P is 1/(1-T)_SSB/MGRP)*P_{sharing factor}When BFD-RS partially overlaps the measurement gap and BFD-RS partially overlaps the SMTC opportunity (T)_SSB<T_SMTCperiod) And the SMTC timing does not overlap with the measurement gap and T_SMTCperiodMGRP and T_SSB＝0.5*T_SMTCperiod. P is 1/{1-T_SSB/min(T_SMTCperiodMGRP), when BFD-RS partially overlaps the measurement gap (T)_SSB<MGRP) and BFD-RS overlaps SMTC opportunities partially (T)_SSB<T_SMTCperiod) And the SMTC timing overlaps partially or completely with the measurement gap. P may be 1/(1-T) _SSB/MGRP)*P_{sharing factor}When the BFD-RS partially overlaps the measurement gap and the BFD-RS fully overlaps the SMTC opportunity (T)_SSB＝T_SMTCperiod) And the SMTC occasion partially overlaps with the measurement gap (T)_SMTCperiod<MGRP). It may be that P_{sharing factor}＝3。

If higher layer signaling for smtc2 is configured, T_SMTCperiodA value that may correspond to a higher layer parameter smtc 2; otherwise, T_SMTCperiodMay correspond to the value of the higher layer parameter smtc 1. It may be the case that a longer evaluation period would be expected if the combination of BFD-RS, SMTC timing and measurement gap configuration did not satisfy the previous conditions.

For CSI-RS based beam failure detection, the UE evaluates at the last T_{Evaluate_BFD_CSI-RS}[ms]Set of in-period estimatesWhether the downlink radio link quality on the configured CSI-RS resource in (1) becomes more than T_{Evaluate_BFD_CSI-RS}[ms]Threshold value Q in period_{out_LR_CSI-RS}And (4) poor. At least as one possibility, T may be defined for FR1 in the table shown in FIG. 15_{Evaluate_BFD_CSI-RS}The value of (c). T may be defined for FR2 where N ═ 1 in the table shown in fig. 16_{Evaluate_BFD_CSI-RS}If the UE is not provided with the higher layer parameter RadioLinkMonitoringRS, but is provided with the higher layer parameter TCI-state for PDCCH CSI-RS with QCL-type D, or if the CSI-RS configured for BFD is QCL-type with DM-RS for PDCCH and the QCL association is known by the UE, or if the CSI-RS resource configured for BFD is QCL-type D and is time-division multiplexed to the CSI-RS resource configured for L1-RSRP reporting or is configured for use For the SSB of L1-RSRP reporting, then all CSI-RS resources configured for BFD are time-multiplexed with each other, and QCL association is known to the UE and CSI reporting with L1-RSRP measurement for CSI-RS configured for BFD has been done within a certain time.

For FR1, it may be the case that P ═ 1/(1-T)_CSI-RSMGRP) when in the monitored cell there are measurement gaps configured for intra-frequency, inter-frequency or inter-RAT measurements that overlap some but not all occasions of CSI-RS; and P ═ 1, when in the monitored cell, there is no measurement gap that overlaps with any occasion of CSI-RS.

For FR2, it may be the case that P ═ 1, when BFD-RS does not overlap with the measurement gap, and also does not overlap with the SMTC occasion. It may be that P is 1/(1-T)_CSI-RS/MGRP) when BFD-RS partially overlaps the measurement gap and BFD-RS does not overlap SMTC timing (T)_CSI-RS<MGRP)，P＝1/(1-T_CSI-RS/T_SMTCperiod) When BFD-RS does not overlap with the measurement gap and BFD-RS partially overlaps with SMTC timing (T)_CSI-RS<T_SMTCperiod). P may be P_{sharing factor}When BFD-RS does not overlap with the measurement gap and BFD-RS overlaps completely with SMTC timing (T)_CSI-RS＝T_SMTCperiod). P is 1/(1-T)_CSI-RS/MGRP-T_CSI-RS/T_SMTCperiod) When the BFD-RS partially overlaps the measurement gap and the BFD-RS partially overlaps the SMTC opportunity (TCSI-RS) <T_SMTCperiod) And the SMTC timing does not overlap the measurement gap, and T_SMTCperiodNot equal to MGRP or T_SMTCperiodMGRP and T_CSI-RS<0.5*T_SMTCperiod. P may be 1/(1-T)_CSI-RS/MGRP)*P_{sharing factor}When BFD-RS partially overlaps the measurement gap and BFD-RS partially overlaps the SMTC opportunity (T)_CSI-RS<T_SMTCperiod) And the SMTC occasion does not overlap with the measurement gap and T_SMTCperiodMGRP and T_CSI-RS＝0.5*T_{SMTCperiod。}P may be 1/{1-T_CSI-RS/min(T_SMTCperiodMGRP), this time BFD-RSPartially overlapping the measurement gap (T)_CSI-RS<MGRP) and BFD-RS overlaps SMTC opportunities partially (T)_CSI-RS<T_SMTCperiod) And the SMTC timing overlaps partially or completely with the measurement gap. P may be 1/(1-T)_CSI-RS/MGRP)*P_{sharing factor}When the BFD-RS partially overlaps the measurement gap and the BFD-RS fully overlaps the SMTC opportunity (T)_CSI-RS＝Ts_MTCperiod) And the SMTC occasion partially overlaps with the measurement gap (T)_SMTCperiod<MGRP). It may be that P_{sharing factor}Is 3.

If higher layer signaling for smtc2 is configured, T_SMTCperiodA value that may correspond to a higher layer parameter smtc 2; otherwise, T_SMTCperiodCorresponding to the value of the higher layer parameter smtc 1. It may be the case that a longer evaluation period would be expected if the combination of BFD-RS, SMTC timing and measurement gap configuration did not satisfy the previous conditions. At least as one possibility, if the CSI-RS resource configured for BFD is transmitted with a density of 3, M used in the tables shown in fig. 15 and 16_BFDCan be defined as M _BFD＝10。

In some embodiments, the scheduling availability restriction may apply when the UE is performing beam failure detection. For example, it may be the case that there is no scheduling restriction due to beam failure detection performed on the SSB of the BFD-RS configured with the same SCS as PDSCH/PDCCH in FR 1. When the UE supports simultaneousxdatassb-DiffNumerology, it may be the case that there is no limitation on scheduling availability due to beam failure detection based on SSB as BFD-RS. However, when the UE does not support simultaneousxdatassb-DiffNumerology, it may be that the following restrictions apply due to beam failure detection based on the SSB configured as BFD-RS: the UE is not expected to transmit PUCCH/PUSCH or receive PDCCH/PDSCH on SSB symbols to be measured for beam failure detection.

Due to beam failure detection based on CSI-RS as BFD-RS, the following scheduling restrictions may apply: the UE is not expected to transmit PUCCH/PUSCH or receive PDCCH/PDSCH on CSI-RS symbols to measure for beam failure detection. When intra-band carrier aggregation in FR1 is configured, it may be the case that the scheduling restriction applies to all scells aggregated in the same frequency band as the PCell or PSCell. When inter-band carrier aggregation within FR1 is configured, it may be the case that there is no scheduling restriction on FR1 serving cells configured in other frequency bands than the frequency band in which the PCell or PSCell is configured.

Due to beam failure detection on FR2 PCell and/or PSCell, the following scheduling restrictions may apply: if the UE is not provided with the high layer parameter failureDetectionResources but is provided with the high layer parameter TCI-state for PDCCH SSB/CSI-RS with QCL-Typed, or if the SSB/CSI-RS for BFD is QCL-Typed with DM-RS for PDCCH. It may be the case that there is no scheduling restriction since the beam failure detection is performed with the same SCS as the PDSCH/PDCCH. Otherwise, it may be the case that the UE is not expected to transmit PUCCH/PUSCH or receive PDCCH/PDSCH on BFD-RS symbols to be measured for beam failure detection except for RMSI PDCCH/PDSCH and PDCCH/PDSCH that are not required to be received by RRC _ CONNECTED mode UEs.

When in-band carrier aggregation is configured, the following scheduling restrictions may apply to all scells configured in the same frequency band as the PCell and/or PSCell on which the beam failure is detected. For the case where no RS is provided for BFD, or the case where BFD-RS is explicitly configured and quasi co-located with the active TCI state for PDCCH/PDSCH. It may be the case that there is no scheduling restriction since the beam failure detection is performed with the same SCS as the PDSCH/PDCCH. When beam failure detection is performed with a different SCS than PDSCH/PDCCH, for a UE supporting simultaneousxdatasb-DiffNumerology, it may be the case that there is no limitation on scheduling availability due to beam failure detection. For UEs that do not support simultaneousxdatasb-diffnumerology, it may be the case that the UE is not expected to transmit PUCCH/PUSCH or receive PDCCH/PDSCH on the SSB symbols to be measured for beam failure detection. For the case of a QCLed where the BFD-RS is explicitly configured and does not have an active TCI state for PDCCH/PDSCH, it may not be desirable for the UE to transmit PUCCH/PUSCH or receive PDCCH/PDSCH on the BFD-RS symbol to be measured for beam failure detection.

It may be the case that there are no scheduling restrictions on FR1 serving cells, since beam failure detection is performed on FR2 serving PCell and/or PSCell. It may be the case that there are no scheduling restrictions on FR2 serving cells, since beam failure detection is performed on FR1 serving PCell and/or PSCell.

For one or more embodiments, at least one of the components illustrated in one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to perform one or more operations, techniques, processes, and/or methods described in the example section below. For example, the baseband circuitry described above in connection with one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to operate in accordance with one or more of the following examples. As another example, circuitry associated with a UE, base station, network element, etc., as described above in connection with one or more of the preceding figures, can be configured to operate in accordance with one or more of the following examples illustrated in the examples section.

Example 1 may include a gNB configured to operate with a plurality of component carriers including a PCell and an SCell.

Example 2 includes a User Equipment (UE) to operate with a plurality of component carriers (including a PCell and an SCell); performing beam failure detection on the SCell; and transmitting a beam failure recovery request to the gNB.

Example 3 includes the gNB of example 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein the gNB is to configure a plurality of reference signals (SSBs, CSI-RSs) as candidate Tx beams.

Example 4 includes the UE of example 2 and/or some other example herein, wherein the UE is to measure the candidate Tx beam; selecting one or several identified Tx beams; and sending information of the identified Tx beam back to the gNB.

Example 5 includes the gNB of example 3, the UE of example 4, and/or some other example herein, wherein for SCell beam failure recovery, in an RRC configuration for new beam identification (candidamerslist), only an SSB or only a CSI-RS may be configured, wherein if a CSI-RS is configured, the UE shall report a CRI in the new Tx beam information delivered to the gNB, wherein if an SSB is configured, the UE shall report an SSBRI in the new Tx beam information delivered to the gNB.

Example 6 includes the gNB of example 3, the UE of example 4, and/or some other example herein, wherein the gNB is to configure a plurality of candidatebeamrspossible, wherein each list may include a set of SSBs or a set of CSI-RSs, and a corresponding list for the UE to report new beam information may be indicated by DCI or MAC CE or RRC signaling.

Example 7 includes the gNB of example 3, the UE of example 4, and/or some other example herein, wherein for SCell beam failure recovery, in the RRC configuration for new beam identification (candidaberrarmscl), the SSB and/or CSI-RS may be configured and a Candidate Beam Resource Indicator (CBRI) is defined to indicate one RS resource contained in a set of reference signal resources provided by candidaberrarmscl including the SSB and/or CSI-RS, which the UE should report a CBRI in the new Tx beam information delivered to the gNB through UCI/UCI class or MAC-CE, wherein a default CBRI may be considered as "no new beam identified" when the UE cannot identify a new beam.

Example 8 includes the gNB of example 3, the UE of example 4, and/or some other example herein, wherein for SCell beam failure recovery, the SSB and/or CSI-RS may be configured in an RRC configuration for new beam identification (candidatebeamrsrlist), wherein when the UE transmits new Tx beam information over a UCI/UCI class or MAC-CE, the new Tx beam information should include a one-bit indicator plus a reference signal resource indicator, wherein the reference signal resource indicator may be SSBRI or CRI, and wherein the one-bit indicator is to indicate whether the type of the reference signal resource indicator is to indicate that it is SSBRI or CRI.

Example 9 includes the gNB of example 3, the UE of example 4, and/or some other example herein, wherein the UE is to report whether the new beam is identified based on the SSB or the CSI-RS upon delivery of the beam failure event, wherein one PUCCH/PRACH resource is configurable for SSB-based new beam identification and another PUCCH/PRACH resource is available for CSI-RS-based new beam identification, which the UE is then to select one of them to report.

Example 10 includes the UE of example 2 and example 4 and/or some other example herein, wherein for SCell beam failure recovery, the UE may report several new Tx beam information to the gNB over a UCI/UCI class or MAC-CE, wherein the Tx beam information indicating the N Tx beams and the value of N may be configurable or predefined.

Example 11 includes the UE of example 10 and/or some other example herein, wherein N is 1.

Example 12 includes the UE of examples 2 and 4 and/or some other example herein, wherein the UE is to report a number of new beams to report when delivering the beam failure event. In one example, one PUCCH/PRACH resource may be used to indicate that the UE identifies 1 new beam, another PUCCH/PRACH resource may be used to indicate that the UE identifies 2 new beams, and so on.

Example 13 includes a method, comprising: performing or causing to be performed on a secondary cell (SCell) beam failure detection; generating or causing generation of a beam failure recovery request (BFRQ) based on detection of the beam failure of the SCell; and transmitting or causing transmission of the BFRQ to a next generation node b (gnb).

Example 14 includes the method of example 13 and/or some other example herein, further comprising: measuring or causing measurement of one or more candidate Tx beams; selecting or causing selection of the one or more candidate Tx beams as the identified Tx beam; and transmitting or causing transmission of information of the identified Tx beam in the BFRQ to the UE.

Example 15 includes the UE of example 13 and example 14 and/or some other example herein, further comprising: determining or causing determination of a configuration of one or more reference signals as candidate Tx beams, the one or more reference signals comprising SSBs and/or CSI-RSs.

Example 16 includes the method of example 15 and/or some other example herein, wherein the configuring for new beam identification (candidaberamslist) configures only the SSB or only the CSI-RS, wherein the BFRQ is to include the CRI in the new Tx beam information when the CSI-RS is configured, and wherein the BFRQ is to include the SSBRI in the new Tx beam information when the SSB is configured.

Example 17 includes the method of example 15 and/or some other example herein, wherein the configuring is to configure one or more candidatebeamlist IEs, wherein each candidatebeamlist IE includes an SSB group or a CSI-RS group, and a candidatebeamlist IE of the one or more candidatebeamlist IEs for reporting new beam information is indicated by DCI, MAC CE, or RRC signaling.

Example 18 includes the method of example 15 and/or some other example herein, wherein the configuration for new beam identification (candidaberamscl) configures the SSB and/or the CSI-RS and includes a Candidate Beam Resource Indicator (CBRI) to indicate one RS resource contained in a set of reference signal resources provided by candidaberamscl that includes the SSB and/or the CSI-RS, and the method includes transmitting or causing to be transmitted UCI or MAC CE that includes the CBRI in the new Tx beam information, and wherein the default CBRI may be considered as "no new beam identified" when the new beam cannot be identified.

Example 19 includes the method of example 18 and/or some other examples herein, wherein the new Tx beam information comprises a one bit indicator plus a reference signal resource indicator, wherein the reference signal resource indicator is SSBRI or CRI, and wherein the one bit indicator is to indicate whether the reference signal resource indicator is SSBRI or CRI.

Example 20 includes the method of example 15 and/or some other example herein, further comprising: when delivering BFRQ, reporting or causing reporting of whether a new beam is identified based on SSB or CSI-RS, wherein a first PUCCH/PRACH resource may be configured for SSB-based new beam identification and a second PUCCH/PRACH resource may be used for CSI-RS-based new beam identification, and the method includes selecting or causing selection of one of the first PUCCH/PRACH resource or the second PUCCH/PRACH resource to report whether a new beam is identified based on SSB or CSI-RS.

Example 21 includes the method of example 15 and/or some other example herein, further comprising: reporting or causing reporting of one or more new Tx beam information by the UCI or MAC CE, wherein the new Tx beam information indicates N Tx beams, and the value of N is configurable or predefined.

Example 22 includes the method of example 21 and/or some other example herein, wherein N is 1.

Example 23 includes the method of example 15 and/or some other example herein, further comprising: reporting or causing reporting of a number of new beams when delivering BFRQ, wherein a first PUCCH/PRACH resource may be used to indicate that one new beam has been identified, a second PUCCH/PRACH resource may be used to indicate that two new beams have been identified, and so on, an nth PUCCH/PRACH resource may be used to indicate that N new beams have been identified.

Example 24 includes the method of examples 15 to 23 and/or some other example herein, wherein the method is to be performed by a User Equipment (UE).

Example 25 includes a method, comprising: generating or causing to be generated a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message including a beam failure configuration (beamfailure recoveryconfig) Information Element (IE) for including a candidatebeamrstist IE for including a list of reference signals identifying one or more candidate beams for secondary cell (SCell) Beam Failure Recovery (BFR); transmitting or causing transmission of the RRC message to a User Equipment (UE); and receiving new transmit (Tx) beam information with a BFR request (BFRQ).

Example 26 includes the method of example 25 and/or some other example herein, wherein the list of reference signals in the candidateBeamRSList IE includes only one or more Synchronization Signal Blocks (SSBs) or only one or more channel state information reference signals (CSI-RS).

Example 27 includes the method of example 26 and/or some other example herein, further comprising: receiving a CSI-RS resource indicator (CRI) in the new Tx beam information when one or more CSI-RSs are listed; and receiving an SSB resource indicator (SSBRI) in the new Tx beam information when one or more SSBs are listed.

Example 28 includes the method of example 25 and/or some other example herein, wherein the BeamFailureRecoveryConfig IE for including the one or more candiebeamrsllist IEs includes the candiebeamrsllist IE, wherein each candiebeamrsllist IE of the one or more candiebeamrsllist IEs includes one or more SSBs and/or one or more CSI-RSs.

Example 29 includes the method of example 28 and/or some other example herein, further comprising: generating or causing generation of one of Downlink Control Information (DCI), a Medium Access Control (MAC) Control Element (CE), or another RRC message to indicate the one or more SSBs or the one or more CSI-RSs to be used for reporting the new Tx beam information; and transmitting or causing transmission of one of the generated DCI, MAC CE, or other RRC message to the UE.

Example 30 includes the method of example 25, example 28, and/or some other example herein, wherein the candidaberamslist IE is to include one or more SSBs and/or one or more CSI-RSs, and the method comprises: the new Tx beam information is received in Uplink Control Information (UCI) or mac ce, and includes a Candidate Beam Resource Indicator (CBRI) indicating one SSB resource or one CSI-RS resource included in the candidateBeamRSList IE.

Example 31 includes the method of example 30 and/or some other example herein, wherein the CBRI is a default CBRI value when no new beam is identified.

Example 32 includes the method of example 30, example 31, and/or some other example herein, wherein the new Tx beam information comprises a one bit indicator plus a reference signal resource indicator, wherein the reference signal resource indicator is SSBRI or CRI, and the one bit indicator is to indicate a type of the reference signal resource indicator.

Example 33 includes the method of example 26 to example 32 and/or some other example herein, wherein the new Tx beam information is to indicate whether the new beam is identified based on the SSB or the CSI-RS

Example 34 includes the method of example 33 and/or some other example herein, wherein the RRC message is to indicate a first Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) or Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) resource configured for SSB-based new beam identification and a second PUCCH/PRACH resource configured for CSI-RS-based new beam identification, and the method comprises: receiving the new Tx beam information through the first PUCCH/PRACH resource or the second PUCCH/PRACH resource.

Example 35 includes the method of example 25 to example 34 and/or some other example herein, wherein the new Tx beam information is to indicate N Tx beams in the UCI or the MAC-CE, wherein a value of N is configurable or predefined.

Example 36 includes the method of example 25 to example 35 and/or some other example herein, wherein the new Tx beam information is included in the BFRQ.

Example 37 includes the method of example 36 and/or some other example herein, wherein receiving the BFRQ on a first PUCCH/PRACH resource indicates identification of one new beam, receiving the BFRQ on a second PUCCH/PRACH resource indicates identification of two new beams.

Example 38 includes the method of examples 25-37 and/or some other example herein, wherein the method is to be performed by a next generation nodeb (gnb).

Example 39 may include an apparatus comprising means for performing one or more elements of a method described in or associated with any of examples 1-38 or any other method or process described herein.

Example 40 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of an electronic device, cause the electronic device to perform one or more elements of a method according to or related to any of examples 1-38, or any other method or process described herein.

Example 41 may include an apparatus comprising logic, a module, or circuitry to perform one or more elements of a method described in or relating to any one of examples 1-38 or any other method or process described herein.

Example 42 may include a method, technique, or process, or a portion or component thereof, described in or related to any of examples 1-38.

Example 43 may include an apparatus comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform a method, technique, or process, or portion thereof, according to or related to any of examples 1-38.

Example 44 may include a signal, or a portion or component thereof, according to or associated with any one of examples 1-38.

Example 45 may include signals in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

Example 46 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

Example 47 may include a system for providing wireless communications as shown and described herein.

Example 48 may include an apparatus for providing wireless communications as shown and described herein.

Any of the above examples may be combined with any other example (or combination of examples) unless explicitly stated otherwise. The foregoing description of one or more specific implementations provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of the embodiments to the precise form disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practice of various embodiments.

System and implementation

Fig. 17 illustrates an exemplary architecture of a system 1700 of a network according to various embodiments. The following description is provided for an example system 1700 that operates in conjunction with the LTE system standard and the 5G or NR system standard provided by the 3GPP technical specification. However, the exemplary embodiments are not limited in this regard and the described embodiments may be applied to other networks that benefit from the principles described herein, such as future 3GPP systems (e.g., sixth generation (6G)) systems, IEEE 802.16 protocols (e.g., WMAN, WiMAX, etc.), and so forth.

As shown in fig. 17, a system 1700 includes a UE 1701a and a UE 1701b (collectively, "UEs 1701" or "UEs 1701"). In this example, the plurality of UEs 1701 are shown as smart phones (e.g., handheld touchscreen mobile computing devices capable of connecting to one or more cellular networks), but may also include any mobile or non-mobile computing device, such as consumer electronics devices, mobile phones, smart phones, feature phones, tablets, wearable computer devices, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), pagers, wireless handheld devices, desktop computers, laptop computers, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), in-vehicle entertainment (ICE) devices, dashboards (ICs), heads-up display (HUD) devices, on-board diagnostics (OBD) devices, Dashtop Mobile Equipment (DME), Mobile Data Terminals (MDTs), Electronic Engine Management Systems (EEMS), electronic/engine Electronic Control Units (ECU), electronic/engine Electronic Control Modules (ECM), and a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a wearable computer, a mobile phone, embedded systems, microcontrollers, control modules, Engine Management Systems (EMS), networked or "smart" appliances, MTC devices, M2M, IoT devices, and the like.

In some embodiments, any of the UEs 1701 may be an IoT UE, which may include a network access layer designed for low power IoT applications that utilize short-term UE connections. IoT UEs may utilize technologies such as M2M or MTC to exchange data with MTC servers or devices via PLMN, ProSe, or D2D communications, sensor networks, or IoT networks. The M2M or MTC data exchange may be a machine initiated data exchange. IoT networks describe interconnected IoT UEs that may include uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within the internet infrastructure) with ephemeral connections. The IoT UE may execute background applications (e.g., keep-alive messages, status updates, etc.) to facilitate connection of the IoT network. In some of these embodiments, the UE 1701 may be an NB-IoT UE 1701. The NB-IoT provides access to network services using a physical layer optimized for very low power consumption (e.g., full carrier BW of 180kHz, subcarrier spacing may be 3.75kHz or 15 kHz). Multiple E-UTRA functions are not used for NB-IoT and need not be supported by the RAN node 1711 and the UE 1701, which use only NB-IoT. Examples of such E-UTRA functions may include inter-RAT mobility, handover, measurement reporting, common alert functions, GBR, CSG, HeNB support, relaying, carrier aggregation, dual connectivity, NAICS, MBMS, real-time services, in-device co-existing interference avoidance, RAN-assisted WLAN interworking, sidelink communication/discovery, MDT, emergency call, CS fallback, self-configuration/self-optimization, etc. For NB-IoT operation, the UE 1701 operates in DL using 12 subcarriers with a subcarrier BW of 15kHz and operates in UL using a single subcarrier with a subcarrier BW of 3.75kHz or 15kHz, or operates in DL using 3, 6, or 12 subcarriers with a subcarrier BW of 15 kHz.

In various embodiments, the UE 1701 may be an MF UE 1701. MF UE 1701 is an LTE-based UE 1701 that operates (exclusively) in unlicensed spectrum. The unlicensed spectrum is defined in the MF specification provided by the MulteFire forum and may include, for example, 1.9GHz (japan), 3.5GHz, and 5 GHz. MulteFire is closely aligned with the 3GPP standard and is built on elements of the 3GPP specifications for LAA/eLAA, thereby enhancing the standard LTE to operate in globally unlicensed spectrum. In some embodiments, LBT may be implemented to coexist with other unlicensed spectrum networks (such as WiFi, other LAA networks, etc.). In various embodiments, some or all of the UEs 1701 may be NB-IoT UEs 1701 operating in accordance with MF. In such embodiments, these UEs 1701 may be referred to as "MF NB-IoT UEs 1701," however, unless otherwise noted, the term "NB-IoT UE 1701" may refer to either "MF UE 1701" or "MF and NB-IoT UEs 1701. Thus, the terms "NB-IoT UE 1701," "MF UE 1701," and "MF NB-IoT UE 1701" may be used interchangeably throughout this disclosure.

The UE 1701 may be configured to connect, e.g., communicatively couple, with the RAN 1710. In an embodiment, RAN 1710 may be an NG RAN or a 5G RAN, an E-UTRAN, an MF RAN, or a legacy RAN, such as UTRAN or GERAN. As used herein, the term "NG RAN" or the like may refer to RAN 1710 operating in the NR or 5G system 1700, while the term "E-UTRAN" or the like may refer to RAN 1710 operating in the LTE or 4G system 1700, and the term "MF RAN" or the like refers to RAN 1710 operating in the MF system 100. Multiple UEs 1701 utilize connections (or channels) 1703 and 1704, respectively, each connection including a physical communication interface or layer (discussed in further detail below). Connections 103 and 104 may include several different physical DL channels and several different physical UL channels. By way of example, physical DL channels include PDSCH, PMCH, PDCCH, EPDCCH, MPDCCH, R-PDCCH, SPDCCH, PBCH, PCFICH, PHICH, NPBCH, NPDCCH, NPDSCH and/or any other physical DL channel mentioned herein. For example, the physical UL channel includes PRACH, PUSCH, PUCCH, SPUCCH, NPRACH, NPUSCH, and/or any other physical UL channel mentioned herein.

In this example, connections 1703 and 1704 are shown as air interfaces to enable the communicative coupling, and may be consistent with a cellular communication protocol, such as a GSM protocol, a CDMA network protocol, a PTT protocol, a POC protocol, a UMTS protocol, a 3GPP LTE protocol, a 5G protocol, an NR protocol, and/or any other communication protocol discussed herein. In an embodiment, multiple UEs 1701 may exchange communication data directly via the ProSe interface 1705. ProSe interface 1705 may alternatively be referred to as SL interface 1705 and may include one or more physical and/or logical channels including, but not limited to, PSCCH, pscsch, PSDCH, and PSBCH.

UE 1701b is shown configured to access AP 1706 (also referred to as "WLAN node 1706", "WLAN terminal 1706", or "WT 1706", etc.) via connection 1707. Connection 1707 may comprise a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, where AP 1706 would include wireless fidelityA router. In this example, AP 1706 is shown connected to the internet without being connected to a core network of a wireless system (described in further detail below). In various embodiments, the UE 1701b, the RAN 1710, and the AP 1706 may be configured to operate with LWA and/or LWIP. LWA operation may involve configuring, by the RAN nodes 1711a-1711b, the UE 1701b in an RRC _ CONNECTED state to utilize radio resources for LTE and WLAN. LWIP operations may involve the UE 1701b using WLAN radio resources (e.g., the connection 1707) via an IPsec protocol tunnel to authenticate and encrypt packets (e.g., IP packets) sent over the connection 1707. IPsec tunneling may involve encapsulating the entire original IP packet and adding a new packet header, thereby protecting the original header of the IP packet.

The RAN 1710 can include one or more AN nodes or RAN nodes 1711a and 1711b (collectively, "RAN nodes 1711" or "RAN node 1711") that enable the connections 1703 and 1704. As used herein, the terms "access node," "access point," and the like may describe equipment that provides radio baseband functionality for data and/or voice connections between a network and one or more users. These access nodes may be referred to as BSs, gnbs, RAN nodes, enbs, nodebs, RSUs, MF-APs, trxps, TRPs, or the like, and may include ground stations (e.g., terrestrial access points) or satellite stations that provide coverage within a geographic area (e.g., a cell). As used herein, the term "NG RAN node" or the like may refer to a RAN node 1711 (e.g., a gNB) operating in the NR or 5G system 1700, while the term "E-UTRAN node" or the like may refer to a RAN node 1711 (e.g., an eNB) operating in the LTE or 4G system 1700. According to various embodiments, the RAN node 1711 may be implemented as one or more of a dedicated physical device such as a macrocell base station and/or a Low Power (LP) base station for providing femtocells, picocells, or other similar cells with smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth than macrocells.

In some embodiments, all or part of the RAN node 1711 may be implemented as one or more software entities running on a server computer as part of a virtual network that may be referred to as a CRAN and/or virtual baseband unit pool (vbbp). In these embodiments, the CRAN or vbbp may implement RAN functional partitioning, such as PDCP partitioning, where RRC and PDCP layers are operated by the CRAN/vbbp, while other L2 protocol entities are operated by respective RAN nodes 1711; MAC/PHY division, where RRC, PDCP, RLC and MAC layers are operated by CRAN/vbup, and PHY layers are operated by respective RAN nodes 1711; or "lower PHY" division, where the RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC layers and upper portions of the PHY layers are operated by the CRAN/vbbp, and lower portions of the PHY layers are operated by the respective RAN nodes 1711. The virtualization framework allows idle processor cores of RAN node 1711 to execute other virtualized applications. In some implementations, a separate RAN node 1711 may represent a separate gNB-DU connected to the gNB-CU via a separate F1 interface (not shown in fig. 17). In these implementations, the gNB-DUs may include one or more remote radio heads or RFEMs (see, e.g., fig. 20), and the gNB-CUs may be operated by a server (not shown) located in the RAN 1710 or by a server pool in a similar manner as the CRAN/vbbp. Additionally or alternatively, one or more of the RAN nodes 1711 may be a next generation eNB (NG-eNB), which is a RAN node that provides E-UTRA user plane and control plane protocol terminations towards the UE 1701 and is connected to a 5GC (e.g., CN 1920 of fig. 19) via an NG interface (discussed below). In MF implementations, the MF-AP 1711 is an entity that provides MulteFire radio services and may be similar to the eNB 1711 in the 3GPP architecture. Each MF-AP 1711 includes or provides one or more MF cells.

In the V2X scenario, one or more of the RAN nodes 1711 may be or act as RSUs. The term "road side unit" or "RSU" may refer to any traffic infrastructure entity for V2X communication. The RSUs may be implemented in or by a suitable RAN node or a stationary (or relatively stationary) UE, where the RSUs implemented in or by the UE may be referred to as "UE-type RSUs," the RSUs implemented in or by the eNB may be referred to as "eNB-type RSUs," the RSUs implemented in or by the gbb may be referred to as "gbb-type RSUs," and so on. In one example, the RSU is a computing device coupled with radio frequency circuitry located on the road side that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs 1701 (vues 1701). The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry for storing intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, and applications/software for sensing and controlling ongoing vehicle and pedestrian traffic. The RSU may operate over the 5.9GHz Direct Short Range Communications (DSRC) band to provide the very low latency communications required for high speed events, such as collision avoidance, traffic warnings, and the like. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may operate on the cellular V2X frequency band to provide the aforementioned low-delay communications as well as other cellular communication services. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may operate as a Wi-Fi hotspot (2.4GHz band) and/or provide connectivity to one or more cellular networks to provide uplink and downlink communications. Some or all of the computing device and the radio frequency circuitry of the RSU may be packaged in a weather resistant enclosure suitable for outdoor installation, and may include a network interface controller to provide wired connections (e.g., ethernet) to a traffic signal controller and/or a backhaul network.

Any of the plurality of RAN nodes 1711 may serve as endpoints of an air interface protocol and may be a first point of contact for a plurality of UEs 1701. In some embodiments, any of the plurality of RAN nodes 1711 may perform various logical functions of the RAN 1710, including, but not limited to, functions of a Radio Network Controller (RNC), such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobility management.

In an embodiment, the UE 1701 may be configured to communicate with each other or any of the RAN nodes 1711 using OFDM communication signals over a multicarrier communication channel in accordance with various communication techniques, such as, but not limited to, OFDMA communication techniques (e.g., for downlink communications) or SC-FDMA communication techniques (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communications), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. The OFDM signal may include a plurality of orthogonal subcarriers.

The downlink and uplink transmissions may be organized into frames having a 10ms duration, where each frame includes ten 1ms subframes. The slot duration is 14 symbols with normal CP and 12 symbols with extended CP and time scaling as a function of the subcarrier spacing used is such that there are always an integer number of slots in the subframe. In LTE implementations, the DL resource grid may be used for DL transmissions from any RAN node 1711 to UE 1701, while UL transmissions from UE 1701 to RAN node 1711 may similarly utilize an appropriate UL resource grid. These resource grids may refer to time-frequency grids and indicate physical resources in the DL or UL in each slot. Each column and each row of the DL resource grid corresponds to one OFDM symbol and one OFDM subcarrier, respectively, and each column and each row of the UL resource grid corresponds to one SC-FDMA symbol and one SC-FDMA subcarrier, respectively. The duration of the resource grid in the time domain corresponds to one time slot in a radio frame. The resource grid includes a plurality of RBs that describe the mapping of certain physical channels to REs. In the frequency domain, this may represent the smallest amount of resources that can currently be allocated. Each RB includes a set of REs. RE is the minimum time frequency in the resource grid And (4) units. Each RE is uniquely identified by an index pair (k, l) in the slot, whereAnd isRespectively, the frequency domain and the time domain. RE (k, l) on antenna port p corresponds to complex valuesAn antenna port is defined such that a channel on which a symbol on the antenna port is transmitted can be inferred from a channel on the same antenna port on which another symbol is transmitted. There is one resource grid per antenna port. The set of antenna ports supported depends on the reference signal configuration in the cell, and these aspects are discussed in more detail in 3GPP TS 36.211.

In the NR/5G implementation, DL and UL transmissions are organized into frames having 10ms durations, each duration including ten 1ms subframes. The number of consecutive OFDM symbols per sub-frame isEach frame is divided into two equal-sized half-frames of five subframes, each subframe having half-frame 0 comprising subframes 0-4 and half-frame 1 comprising subframes 5-9. There is a set of frames in the UL and a set of frames in the DL on a carrier. The uplink frame number i for transmission from the UE should be at T_TA＝(N_TA+N_TA,offset)T_cBy 3GPP TS 38.213N_TA,offsetThe start of the corresponding downlink frame at a given UE begins before. For the subcarrier spacing configuration mu, the slots are numbered within a subframe in increasing order as And are numbered in increasing order within the frame asIn a time slotSuccessive OFDM symbols, whereinDepending on the cyclic prefix given in tables 4.3.2-1 and 4.3.2-2 of 3GPP TS 38.211. Time slots in subframesIs started in time with an OFDM symbol in the same subframeIs aligned. The OFDM symbols in a slot may be classified as "downlink", "flexible", or "uplink", where downlink transmissions occur only in "downlink" or "flexible" symbols and the UE 1701 is transmitting only in "uplink" or "flexible" symbols.

For each parameter and carrier, definingSubcarrier sumResource grid of OFDM symbols starting from a common RB indicated by higher layer signalingTo (3). There is a set of resource grids for each transmission direction (e.g., uplink or downlink), where the subscript x is set to DL for downlink and x is set to UL for uplink. For a given antenna port p, subcarrier spacing configuration μ, and transmission direction (e.g., downlink or uplink), there is one resource grid.

RB is defined as in the frequency domainA number of consecutive subcarriers. With mu arranged at subcarrier spacingIn the frequency domain, the common RBs are numbered from 0 up. The center of subcarrier 0 of common resource block 0 in which μ is arranged at a subcarrier spacing coincides with "point a". Common resource block numbering in the frequency domain The relation between resource elements (k, l) spaced from the subcarrier by mu is determined byGiven, k is defined with respect to point a such that k-0 corresponds to a subcarrier centered at point a. Point a serves as a common reference point of the resource block grid and is obtained from offsetttopointa of the PCell downlink, where offsetttopointa represents a frequency offset between point a and the lowest subcarrier of the lowest resource block, has a subcarrier spacing provided by the high-layer parameter subanticerarsspacincommon, and overlaps with the SS/PBCH block used by the UE for initial cell selection, expressed in units of resource blocks, assuming that the subcarrier spacing of FR1 is 15kHz and the subcarrier spacing of FR2 is 60 kHz; and absoluteFrequencyPointA for all other cases, where absoluteFrequencyPointA represents the frequency location of point a as represented in ARFCN.

PRBs of subcarrier configuration μ are defined within BWP and are numbered 0 throughWhere i is the number of BWPs. Physical resource block in BWPiTo the publicThe relationship between byThe method for preparing the high-performance nano-particles is provided, wherein,is a common RB, wherein BWP is relative to commonRB 0 begins. VRB is defined within BWP and numbered 0 throughWhere i is the number of BWPs.

Each element in the resource grid for antenna port p and subcarrier spacing configuration μ is called RE and is represented by (k, l) _p,μUniquely identified, where k is an index in the frequency domain and/refers to the symbol position in the time domain relative to some reference point. Resource element (k, l)_p,μCorresponding to physical resources and complex valuesAn antenna port is defined such that a channel on which a symbol on the antenna port is transmitted can be inferred from a channel on the same antenna port on which another symbol is transmitted. Two antenna ports are considered to be quasi co-located if a wide range of properties of the channel carrying the symbol on the other antenna port can be inferred from the channel carrying the symbol on one antenna port. Large scale properties include one or more of delay spread, doppler shift, average gain, average delay, and spatial Rx parameters.

BWP is μ on a given carrier_iA subset of consecutive common resource blocks defined in sub-clause 4.4.4.3 of 3GPP TS 38.211 for a given set of parameters in BWPi. Starting positionAnd resource blocks in BWPShould be respectively satisfied withAndthe configuration of BWP is described in clause 12 of 3GPP TS 38.213. The UE 1701 may be configured with up to four BWPs in DL, with a single oneDL BWP is active at a given time. The UE 1701 is not expected to receive PDSCH, PDCCH, or CSI-RS (except RRM) outside of the active BWP. The UE 1701 may be configured to have up to four BWPs in the UL, with a single UL BWP being active at a given time. If the UE 1701 is configured with supplemental UL, the UE 1701 may be configured with up to four additional BWPs in the supplemental UL, where a single supplemental UL BWP is active at a given time. The UE 1701 does not transmit PUSCH or PUCCH outside of the active BWP and for the active cell, the UE does not transmit SRS outside of the active BWP.

NB is defined as six non-overlapping contiguous PRBs in the frequency domain. Total number of DL NBs in DL transmission BW configured in cell is composed ofIt is given. In a narrow band n_NBIncluding PRB index(wherein)In the case of (2), the NB numbers in order of increasing PRB number

If it is notThe wideband is defined as four non-overlapping narrow bands in the frequency domain. The total number of uplink bandwidths in the configured uplink transmission bandwidths in the cell is determined byGiven, and the wideband is numbered in order of increasing the number of narrowbandsWherein, the broadband n_WBBy narrowband indexing 4n_WB+ i, wherein i ═ 0, 1. If it is notThenAnd a single broadband routerOne or more non-overlapping narrow bands.

There are several different physical channels and physical signals transmitted using RBs and/or individual REs. The physical channels correspond to RE sets carrying information originating from higher layers. The physical UL channel may include a PUSCH, PUCCH, PRACH, and/or any other physical UL channel discussed herein, and the physical DL channel may include a PDSCH, PBCH, PDCCH, and/or any other physical DL channel discussed herein. The physical signal is used by the physical layer (e.g., PHY 2310 of fig. 23), but does not carry information originating from higher layers. The physical UL signals may include DMRS, PTRS, SRS, and/or any other physical UL signal discussed herein, and the physical DL signals may include DMRS, PTRS, CSI-RS, PSS, SSS, and/or any other physical DL signal discussed herein.

The PDSCH carries user data and higher layer signaling to the UE 1701. In general, downlink scheduling (allocation of control and shared channel resource blocks to UEs 1701b within a cell) may be performed at any one of the RAN nodes 1711 based on channel quality information fed back from any one of the UEs 1701. The downlink resource allocation information may be sent on a PDCCH for (e.g., allocated to) each UE of the plurality of UEs 1701. The PDCCH transmits control information (e.g., DCI) using CCEs, and a set of CCEs may be referred to as a "control region". The control channel is formed by an aggregation of one or more CCEs, where different coding rates of the control channel are achieved by aggregating different numbers of CCEs. The CCE numbering is from 0 to N_CCE,k-1, wherein N_CCE,k-1 is the number of CCEs in the control region of subframe k. The PDCCH complex-valued symbols may be first organized into quadruplets before being mapped to REs, and then may be arranged for rate matching using a sub-block interleaver. Each PDCCH can be transmitted using one or more of these CCEs, whereEach CCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical REs, referred to as REGs. Four QoS symbols may be mapped to each REG. The PDCCH may be transmitted using one or more CCEs according to the size of DCI and channel conditions. There may be four or more different PDCCH formats defined with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation levels, L1, 2, 4, or 8 in LTE, and L1, 2, 4, 8, or 16 in NR). UE 1701 monitors a set of PDCCH candidates on one or more activated serving cells as configured by higher layer signaling for control information (e.g., DCI), where monitoring means attempting to decode each of the PDCCHs (or PDCCH candidates) in the set according to all monitored DCI formats (e.g., DCI formats 0 through 6-2, as discussed in section 5.3.3 of 3GPP TS 38.212, DCI formats 0_0 through 2_3, as discussed in section 7.3 of 3GPP TS 38.212, etc.). The UE 1701 monitors (or attempts to decode) the respective PDCCH candidate set in one or more configured monitoring occasions according to the corresponding search space configuration. The DCI transmits DL, UL or SL scheduling information, a request for aperiodic CQI reporting, LAA common information, a notification of MCCH change, UL power control commands for one cell and/or one RNTI, a notification of a set of UEs 1701 of a slot format, a notification of a set of UEs of PRB and OFDM symbols (where the UEs may assume that no transmissions are intended for the UEs), TPC commands for PUCCH and PUSCH and/or TPC commands for PUCCH and PUSCH. The DCI encoding step is discussed in 3GPP TS 38.212.

Some embodiments may use the concept of resource allocation for control channel information, which is an extension of the above concept. For example, some embodiments may utilize EPDCCH which uses PDSCH resources for control information transmission. The EPDCCH may be transmitted using one or more ECCEs. Similar to the above, each ECCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements, referred to as EREGs. In some cases, ECCE may have other numbers of EREGs.

As mentioned before, the PDCCH may be used to schedule DL transmissions on PDSCH and UL transmissions on PUSCH, wherein the DCI on PDCCH specifically includes a downlink allocation containing at least a modulation and coding format, resource allocation and HARQ information related to DL-SCH; and/or an uplink scheduling grant containing at least modulation and coding format, resource allocation, and HARQ information related to the UL-SCH. In addition to scheduling, PDCCH may be used to activate and deactivate configured PUSCH transmissions with configured grants; activating and deactivating PDSCH semi-persistent transmission; informing one or more UEs 1701 of the slot format; notifying one or more UEs 1701 of PRBs and OFDM symbols, wherein the UEs 1701 may assume that no transmission is intended for the UE; transmitting TPC commands of PUCCH and PUSCH; transmitting, by one or more UEs 1701, one or more TPC commands for SRS transmission; active BWP of handover UE 1701; and initiating a random access procedure.

In NR implementations, the UE 1701 monitors (or attempts to decode) the corresponding PDCCH candidate set in one or more configured CORESET in one or more configured monitoring occasions according to the corresponding search space configuration. The CORESET may include a PRB set having a duration of 1 to 3 OFDM symbols. CORESET may additionally or alternatively include in the frequency domainAnd in the time domainAnd (4) a symbol. CORESET includes six REGs numbered in increasing order in a time-first manner, where a REG is equal to one RB during one OFDM symbol. The UE 1701 may be configured with multiple CORESET, where each CORESET is associated with only one CCE to REG mapping. CCE to REG mapping supporting interleaving and non-interleaving in CORESET. Each REG carrying the PDCCH carries its own DMRS.

According to various embodiments, the UE 1701 and the RAN node 1711 communicate data (e.g., transmit data and receive data) over a licensed medium (also referred to as a "licensed spectrum" and/or a "licensed frequency band") and an unlicensed shared medium (also referred to as an "unlicensed spectrum" and/or an "unlicensed frequency band"). The licensed spectrum may include channels operating in a frequency range of about 400MHz to about 3.8GHz, while the unlicensed spectrum may include a 5GHz band.

To operate in unlicensed spectrum, the UE 1701 and the RAN node 1711 may operate using LAA, eLAA, and/or feLAA mechanisms. In these implementations, the UE 1701 and the RAN node 1711 may perform one or more known medium sensing operations and/or carrier sensing operations to determine whether one or more channels in the unlicensed spectrum are unavailable or otherwise occupied prior to transmission in the unlicensed spectrum. The medium/carrier sensing operation may be performed according to a Listen Before Talk (LBT) protocol.

LBT is a mechanism by which equipment (e.g., UE 1701, RAN node 1711, etc.) senses a medium (e.g., a channel or carrier frequency) and transmits when the medium is sensed as idle (or when a particular channel in the medium is sensed as unoccupied). The medium sensing operation may include a CCA that utilizes at least the ED to determine whether there are other signals on the channel in order to determine whether the channel is occupied or clear. The LBT mechanism allows the cellular/LAA network to coexist with existing systems in unlicensed spectrum as well as with other LAA networks. ED may include sensing RF energy over an expected transmission band for a period of time and comparing the sensed RF energy to a predefined or configured threshold.

Typically, the existing system in the 5GHz band is a WLAN based on IEEE 802.11 technology. WLANs employ a contention-based channel access mechanism called CSMA/CA. Here, when a WLAN node (e.g., a Mobile Station (MS) such as UE 1701, AP 1706, etc.) intends to transmit, the WLAN node may first perform a CCA prior to the transmission. In addition, in the case where more than one WLAN node senses the channel as idle and transmits simultaneously, a back-off mechanism is used to avoid collisions. The back-off mechanism may be a counter introduced randomly within the CWS that is incremented exponentially when collisions occur and is reset to a minimum value when the transmission is successful. The LBT mechanism designed for LAA is somewhat similar to CSMA/CA of WLAN. In some implementations, the LBT procedure for a DL or UL transmission burst (including PDSCH or PUSCH transmissions) may have an LAA contention window of variable length between X and Y ECCA slots, where X and Y are the minimum and maximum values of the CWS for the LAA. In one example, the minimum CWS for LAA transmission may be 9 microseconds (μ β); however, the size of the CWS and MCOT (e.g., transmission bursts) may be based on government regulatory requirements.

The LAA mechanism is built on the CA technology of the LTE-Advanced system. In CA, each aggregated carrier is referred to as a CC. One CC may have a bandwidth of 1.4MHz, 3MHz, 5MHz, 10MHz, 15MHz, or 20MHz, and a maximum of five CCs may be aggregated, so the maximum aggregated bandwidth is 100 MHz. In an FDD system, the number of aggregated carriers may be different for DL and UL, where the number of UL CCs is equal to or lower than the number of DL component carriers. In some cases, each CC may have a different bandwidth than other CCs. In a TDD system, the number of CCs and BW of each CC are typically the same for DL and UL.

The CA also contains individual serving cells to provide individual CCs. The coverage of the serving cell may be different, e.g., because CCs on different frequency bands will experience different path losses. The primary serving cell or PCell may provide PCC for both UL and DL and may handle RRC and NAS related activities. The other serving cells are referred to as scells, and each SCell may provide a respective SCC for both UL and DL. SCCs may be added and removed as needed, while changing PCCs may require the UE 1701 to undergo handover. In LAA, eLAA, and feLAA, some or all of the scells may operate in unlicensed spectrum (referred to as "LAA scells"), and the LAA scells are assisted by a PCell operating in licensed spectrum. When the UE is configured with more than one LAA SCell, the UE may receive a UL grant on the configured LAA SCell, indicating different PUSCH starting positions within the same subframe.

The plurality of RAN nodes 1711 may be configured to communicate with each other via an interface 1712. In embodiments where system 1700 is an LTE system (e.g., when CN 1720 is EPC 1820 as in fig. 18), interface 1712 may be an X2 interface 1712. An X2 interface may be defined between two or more RAN nodes 1711 (e.g., two or more enbs, etc.) connected to the EPC 1720 and/or between two enbs connected to the EPC 1720. In some implementations, the X2 interfaces can include an X2 user plane interface (X2-U) and an X2 control plane interface (X2-C). The X2-U may provide a flow control mechanism for user packets transmitted over the X2 interface and may be used to communicate information about the delivery of user data between enbs. For example, X2-U may provide specific sequence number information about user data transmitted from MeNB to SeNB; information on successful in-order delivery of PDCP PDUs from SeNB to UE 1701 for user data; information of PDCP PDUs not delivered to the UE 1701; information on a current minimum expected buffer size at the SeNB for transmitting user data to the UE; and so on. X2-C may provide intra-LTE access mobility functions including context transfer from source eNB to target eNB, user plane transfer control, etc.; a load management function; and an inter-cell interference coordination function. In embodiments where system 100 is an MF system (e.g., when CN 1720 is NHCN 1720), interface 1712 may be an X2 interface 1712. An X2 interface can be defined between two or more RAN nodes 1711 (e.g., two or more MF-APs, etc.) connected to NHCN 1720 and/or between two MF-APs connected to NHCN 1720. In these embodiments, the X2 interface may operate in the same or similar manner as previously discussed.

In embodiments where the system 1700 is a 5G or NR system (e.g., when the CN 1720 is the 5GC 1920 in fig. 19), the interface 1712 may be an Xn interface 1712. The Xn interface is defined between two or more RAN nodes 1711 (e.g., two or more gnbs, etc.) connected to the 5GC 1720, between a RAN node 1711 (e.g., a gNB) connected to the 5GC 1720 and an eNB, and/or between two enbs connected to the 5GC 1720. In some implementations, the Xn interface can include an Xn user plane (Xn-U) interface and an Xn control plane (Xn-C) interface. The Xn-U may provide non-guaranteed delivery of user plane PDUs and support/provide data forwarding and flow control functions. The Xn-C can provide management and error processing functions for managing the functions of the Xn-C interface; mobility support for the UE 1701 in connected mode (e.g., CM connected) includes functionality for managing connected mode UE mobility between one or more RAN nodes 1711. Mobility support may include context transfer from the old (source) serving RAN node 1711 to the new (target) serving RAN node 1711; and control of the user plane tunnel between the old (source) serving RAN node 1711 to the new (target) serving RAN node 1711. The protocol stack of the Xn-U may include a transport network layer established on top of an Internet Protocol (IP) transport layer, and a GTP-U layer on top of UDP and/or IP layers for carrying user plane PDUs. The Xn-C protocol stack may include an application layer signaling protocol, referred to as the Xn application protocol (Xn-AP), and a transport network layer built over SCTP. SCTP can be on top of the IP layer and can provide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages. In the transport IP layer, point-to-point transport is used to deliver the signaling PDUs. In other implementations, the Xn-U protocol stack and/or the Xn-C protocol stack may be the same as or similar to the user plane and/or control plane protocol stacks shown and described herein.

The RAN 1710 is shown communicatively coupled to a core network — in this embodiment, to a CN 1720. The CN 1720 may include a plurality of network elements 1722 configured to provide various data and telecommunications services to clients/subscribers (e.g., users of the UE 1701) connected to the CN 1720 via the RAN 1710. The components of CN 1720 may be implemented in one physical node or in separate physical nodes, including components for reading and executing instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium). In some embodiments, NFV may be used to virtualize any or all of the above network node functions via executable instructions stored in one or more computer-readable storage media (described in further detail below). Logical instances of CN 1720 may be referred to as network slices, and logical instances of a portion of CN 1720 may be referred to as network subslices. The NFV architecture and infrastructure can be used to virtualize one or more network functions onto physical resources (alternatively performed by proprietary hardware) that contain a combination of industry standard server hardware, storage hardware, or switches. In other words, the NFV system may be used to perform a virtual or reconfigurable implementation of one or more EPC components/functions.

In general, the application server 1730 may be an element that provides applications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g., UMTS PS domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). The application server 1730 may also be configured to support one or more communication services (e.g., VoIP sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social networking services, etc.) for the UE 1701 via the EPC 1720.

In an embodiment, the CN 1720 may be a 5GC (referred to as a "5 GC 1720" or the like), and the RAN 1710 may connect with the CN 1720 via a NG interface 1713. In an embodiment, the NG interface 1713 may be divided into two parts: a NG user plane (NG-U) interface 1714 that carries traffic data between RAN node 1711 and the UPF; and an S1 control plane (NG-C) interface 1715, which is a signaling interface between the RAN node 1711 and the AMF. An embodiment of CN 1720 as 5GC 1720 is discussed in more detail with reference to fig. 19.

In embodiments, CN 1720 may be a 5G CN (referred to as "5 GC 1720" or the like), while in other embodiments, CN 1720 may be an EPC. In the case where the CN 1720 is an EPC (referred to as "EPC 1720," etc.), the RAN 1710 may connect with the CN 1720 via an S1 interface 1713. In an embodiment, the S1 interface 1713 may be divided into two parts: an S1 user plane (S1-U) interface 1714 that carries traffic data between the RAN node 1711 and the S-GW; and S1-MME interface 1715, which is a signaling interface between RAN node 1711 and the MME.

In embodiments where CN 1720 is MF NHCN 1720, one or more network elements 1722 may include or operate one or more NH-MMEs, local AAA proxies, NH-GWs, and/or other similar MF NHCN elements. The NH-MME provides similar functionality as the MME in EPC 1720. The home AAA proxy is an AAA proxy that is part of the NHN that provides the AAA functions needed to interwork with the PSP AAA and the 3GPP AAA. The PSP AAA is an AAA server (or server pool) that uses non-USIM credentials associated with the PSP and may be internal or external to the NHN, and the 3GPP AAA is discussed in more detail in 3GPP TS 23.402. The NH-GW provides a similar functionality as a combined S-GW/P-GW for non-EPC routed PDN connections. For EPC routed PDN connections, the NHN-GW provides similar functionality as the S-GW previously discussed in interacting with MF-APs over S1 interface 1713, and similar to the TWAG in interacting with PLMN PDN-GW over S2a interface. In some embodiments, MF AP 1711 may be connected with EPC 1720 discussed previously. In addition, RAN 1710 (referred to as "MF RAN 1710" or the like) can be connected with NHCN 1720 via S1 interface 1713. In these embodiments, the S1 interface 1713 may be divided into two parts: an S1 interface 1714 that carries traffic data between RAN node 1711 (e.g., "MF-AP 1711") and the NH-GW; and an S1-MME-N interface 1715, which is a signaling interface between the RAN node 1711 and the NH-MME. The S1-U interface 1714 and S1-MME-N interface 1715 have the same or similar functionality as the S1-U interface 1714 and S1-MME interface 1715 of EPC 1720 discussed herein.

Figure 18 illustrates an exemplary architecture of a system 1800 including a first CN 1820, according to various embodiments. In this example, system 1800 may implement the LTE standard, where CN 1820 is EPC 1820 corresponding to CN 1720 of fig. 17. Additionally, the UE 1801 may be the same as or similar to the UE 1701 of fig. 17, and the E-UTRAN 1810 may be the same as or similar to the RAN 1710 of fig. 17, and it may include the RAN node 1711 previously discussed. The CN 1820 may include the MME 1821, S-GW1822, P-GW 1823, HSS 1824, and SGSN 1825.

The MME 1821 may be similar in function to the control plane of a legacy SGSN, and may implement MM functions to track the current location of the UE 1801. The MME 1821 may perform various MM procedures to manage mobility aspects in access, such as gateway selection and tracking area list management. MM (also referred to as "EPS MM" or "EMM" in E-UTRAN systems) may refer to all applicable procedures, methods, data stores, etc. for maintaining knowledge about the current location of the UE 1801, providing user identity confidentiality to the user/subscriber, and/or performing other similar services. Each UE 1801 and MME 1821 may include an MM or EMM sublayer, and when the attach procedure is successfully completed, an MM context may be established in the UE 1801 and MME 1821. The MM context may be a data structure or database object that stores MM-related information of the UE 1801. The MME 1821 may be coupled with the HSS 1824 via an S6a reference point, the SGSN 1825 via an S3 reference point, and the S-GW1822 via an S11 reference point.

The SGSN 1825 may be a node that serves the UE 1801 by tracking the location of the individual UE 1801 and performing security functions. In addition, the SGSN 1825 may perform inter-EPC node signaling for mobility between the 2G/3G and E-UTRAN 3GPP access networks; PDN and S-GW selection as specified by MME 1821; handling of UE 1801 time zone functions as specified by MME 1821; and MME selection for handover to the E-UTRAN 3GPP access network. An S3 reference point between the MME 1821 and the SGSN 1825 may enable user and bearer information exchange for inter-3 GPP access network mobility in the idle state and/or the active state.

The HSS 1824 may include a database for network users that includes subscription-related information for supporting network entities handling communication sessions. The EPC 1820 may include one or several HSS 1824, depending on the number of mobile users, the capacity of the equipment, the organization of the network, etc. For example, the HSS 1824 may provide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization, naming/address resolution, location dependencies, and so on. An S6a reference point between HSS 1824 and MME 1821 may enable transmission of subscription data and authentication data for authenticating/authorizing user access to EPC 1820 between HSS 1824 and MME 1821.

The S-GW 1822 may terminate the S1 interface 1713 ("S1-U" in fig. 18) towards the RAN 1810 and route data packets between the RAN 1810 and the EPC 1820. In addition, the S-GW 1822 may be a local mobility anchor point for inter-RAN node handover, and may also provide an anchor for inter-3 GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful interception, billing, and enforcement of certain policies. An S11 reference point between the S-GW 1822 and the MME 1821 may provide a control plane between the MME 1821 and the S-GW 1822. The S-GW 1822 may be coupled with the P-GW 1823 via an S5 reference point.

The P-GW 1823 may terminate the SGi interface towards the PDN 1830. The P-GW 1823 may route data packets between the EPC 1820 and an external network, such as a network including an application server 1730 (alternatively referred to as an "AF"), via an IP interface 1725 (see, e.g., fig. 17). In an embodiment, P-GW 1823 may be communicatively coupled to an application server (application server 1730 of fig. 17 or PDN 1830 in fig. 18) via IP communication interface 1725 (see, e.g., fig. 17). An S5 reference point between the P-GW 1823 and the S-GW 1822 may provide user plane tunneling and tunnel management between the P-GW 1823 and the S-GW 1822. The S5 reference point may also be used for S-GW 1822 relocation due to UE 1801 mobility and if the S-GW 1822 needs to connect to a non-co-located P-GW 1823 for required PDN connectivity. The P-GW 1823 may also include nodes for policy enforcement and charging data collection, such as a PCEF (not shown). Additionally, the SGi reference point between the P-GW 1823 and the Packet Data Network (PDN)1830 may be an operator external public, private PDN, or an internal operator packet data network, e.g., for providing IMS services. The P-GW 1823 may be coupled with the PCRF 1826 via a Gx reference point.

PCRF 1826 is a policy and charging control element of EPC 1820. In a non-roaming scenario, there may be a single PCRF 1826 in a national public land mobile network (HPLMN) associated with an internet protocol connectivity access network (IP-CAN) session of UE 1801. In a roaming scenario with local traffic breakout, there may be two PCRFs associated with the IP-CAN session of the UE 1801: a domestic PCRF (H-PCRF) in the HPLMN and a visited PCRF (V-PCRF) in a Visited Public Land Mobile Network (VPLMN). The PCRF 1826 may be communicatively coupled to the application server 1830 via the P-GW 1823. Application server 1830 may signal PCRF 1826 to indicate the new service flow and select the appropriate QoS and charging parameters. The PCRF 1826 may configure the rules as a PCEF (not shown) with appropriate TFTs and QCIs that initiate QoS and charging as specified by the application server 1830. A Gx reference point between the PCRF 1826 and the P-GW 1823 may allow QoS policies and charging rules to be transmitted from the PCRF 1826 to the PCEF in the P-GW 1823. The Rx reference point may reside between PDN 1830 (or "AF 1830") and PCRF 1826.

Figure 19 illustrates an architecture of a system 1900 that includes a second CN 1920, according to various embodiments. System 1900 is shown as including: UE 1901, which may be the same or similar to UE 1701 and UE 1801 discussed previously; AN (R) AN 1910, which may be the same or similar to RAN 1710 and RAN 1810 discussed previously, and which may include RAN node 1711 discussed previously; and DN 1903, which may be, for example, a carrier service, internet access, or 3 rd party service; and 5GC 1920. The 5GC 1920 may include AUSF 1922; AMF 1921, SMF 1924, NEF 1923, PCF 1926, NRF 1925, UDM 1927, AF 1928, UPF 1902, and NSSF 1929.

UPF 1902 may serve as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter-RAT mobility, an external PDU session point interconnected with DN 1903, and a branch point to support multi-homed PDU sessions. The UPF 1902 may also perform packet routing and forwarding, perform packet inspection, perform the user plane part of policy rules, lawful intercept packets (UP collection), perform traffic usage reporting, perform QoS processing on the user plane (e.g., packet filtering, gating, DL/UL rate enforcement), perform uplink traffic verification (e.g., SDF to QoS flow mapping), transport level packet marking in uplink and downlink, and perform downlink packet buffering and downlink data notification triggering. The UPF 1902 may include an uplink classifier to support routing of traffic flows to a data network. DN 1903 may represent various network operator services, internet access, or third party services. DN 1903 may include or be similar to application server 1730 discussed previously. UPF 1902 can interact with SMF 1924 via the N4 reference point between SMF 1924 and UPF 1902.

The AUSF 1922 may store data for authenticating the UE 1901 and handle authentication related functions. AUSF 1922 may facilitate a common authentication framework for various access types. AUSF 1922 may communicate with AMF 1921 via an N12 reference point between AMF 1921 and AUSF 1922; and may communicate with UDM 1927 via an N13 reference point between UDM 1927 and AUSF 1922. Additionally, AUSF 1922 may present a Nausf service based interface.

The AMF 1921 may be responsible for registration management (e.g., responsible for registering the UE 1901, etc.), connection management, reachability management, mobility management, and lawful interception of AMF-related events, as well as access authentication and authorization. AMF 1921 may be the termination point of the reference point N11 between AMF 1921 and SMF 1924. AMF 1921 may provide transport for SM messages between UE 1901 and SMF 1924 and act as a transparent proxy for routing SM messages. AMF 1921 may also provide a transport for SMS messages between UE 1901 and the SMSF (not shown in fig. 19). The AMF 1921 may act as a SEAF, which may include interactions with AUSF 1922 and UE 1901, receiving intermediate keys established as a result of the UE 1901 authentication procedure. In the case where USIM-based authentication is used, AMF 1921 may retrieve security materials from AUSF 1922. AMF 1921 may also include an SCM function that receives keys from the SEA for deriving access network specific keys. Further, AMF 1921 may be a termination point of the RAN CP interface, which may include or be AN N2 reference point between (R) AN 1910 and AMF 1921; and the AMF 1921 may be a termination point of NAS (N1) signaling and perform NAS ciphering and integrity protection.

The AMF 1921 may also support NAS signaling with the UE 1901 through the N3IWF interface. An N3IWF may be used to provide access to untrusted entities. The N3IWF may be the termination point of the N2 interface between the (R) AN 1910 and the AMF 1921 of the control plane and may be the termination point of the N3 reference point between the (R) AN 1910 and the UPF 1902 of the user plane. Thus, AMF 1921 may process N2 signaling from SMF 1924 and AMF 1921 for PDU sessions and QoS, encapsulate/decapsulate packets for IPSec and N3 tunneling, label N3 user plane packets in the uplink, and perform QoS corresponding to N3 packet labeling, which takes into account QoS requirements associated with such labels received over N2. The N3IWF may also relay uplink and downlink control plane NAS signaling between UE 1901 and AMF 1921 and uplink and downlink user plane packets between UE 1901 and UPF 1902 via an N1 reference point between UE 1901 and AMF 1921. The N3IWF also provides a mechanism for establishing an IPsec tunnel with the UE 1901. The AMF 1921 may present a Namf service based interface and may be a termination point for an N14 reference point between two AMFs 1921 and an N17 reference point between AMFs 1921 and 5G-EIR (not shown in fig. 19).

The UE 1901 may need to register with the AMF 1921 in order to receive network services. The RM is used to register or deregister the UE 1901 with or from the network (e.g., AMF 1921), and establish a UE context in the network (e.g., AMF 1921). The UE 1901 may operate in an RM-REGISTERED state or an RM-DERREGISTERED state. In the RM-registered state, the UE 1901 is not registered with the network and the UE context in AMF 1921 does not hold valid location or routing information for the UE 1901, so the UE 1901 is not accessible by AMF 1921. In the RM-REGISTERED state, the UE 1901 registers with the network, and the UE context in AMF 1921 may maintain valid location or routing information for the UE 1901, so the UE 1901 may be accessed by AMF 1921. In the RM-REGISTERED state, the UE 1901 may perform a mobility registration update procedure, perform a periodic registration update procedure triggered by the expiration of a periodic update timer (e.g., to notify the network that the UE 1901 is still active), and perform a registration update procedure to update UE capability information or renegotiate protocol parameters with the network, and so forth.

The AMF 1921 may store one or more RM contexts for the UE 1901, where each RM context is associated with a particular access to the network. The RM context may be a data structure, database object, etc. that indicates or stores, among other things, the registration status and the periodic update timer for each access type. AMF 1921 may also store a 5GC MM context, which may be the same as or similar to the (E) MM context previously discussed. In various embodiments, AMF 1921 may store the CE mode B restriction parameters for UE 1901 in the associated MM context or RM context. AMF 1921 may also derive values from the UE's usage setting parameters already stored in the UE context (and/or MM/RM context) if needed.

The CM may be used to establish and release a signaling connection between the UE 1901 and the AMF 1921 over the N1 interface. The signaling connection is used to enable NAS signaling exchange between the UE 1901 and the CN 1920 and includes both the signaling connection between the UE and the AN (e.g., RRC connection for non-3 GPP access or UE-N3IWF connection) and the N2 connection of the UE 1901 between the AN (e.g., RAN 1910) and AMF 1921. The UE 1901 may operate in one of two CM states (CM-IDLE mode or CM-CONNECTED mode). When the UE 1901 is operating in a CM-IDLE state/mode, the UE 1901 may not have a NAS signaling connection established with the AMF 1921 over the N1 interface, and there may be AN (R) AN 1910 signaling connection (e.g., N2 and/or N3 connection) for the UE 1901. When the UE 1901 operates in the CM-CONNECTED state/mode, the UE 1901 may have a NAS signaling connection established with the AMF 1921 over the N1 interface, and there may be AN (R) AN 1910 signaling connection (e.g., N2 and/or N3 connection) for the UE 1901. Establishing AN N2 connection between the (R) AN 1910 and the AMF 1921 may cause the UE 1901 to transition from CM-IDLE mode to CM-CONNECTED mode, and when N2 signaling between the (R) AN 1910 and the AMF 1921 is released, the UE 1901 may transition from CM-CONNECTED mode to CM-IDLE mode.

SMF 1924 may be responsible for SM (e.g., session establishment, modification, and publication, including tunnel maintenance between UPF and AN nodes); UE IP address assignment and management (including optional authorization); selection and control of the UP function; configuring traffic steering of the UPF to route traffic to the correct destination; terminating the interface towards the policy control function; a policy enforcement and QoS control part; lawful interception (for SM events and interface with LI system); terminate the SM portion of the NAS message; a downlink data notification; initiating AN-specific SM message sent to the AN through N2 via the AMF; and determining an SSC pattern for the session. SM may refer to management of a PDU session, and a PDU session or "session" may refer to a PDU connectivity service that provides or enables PDU exchange between a UE 1901 and a Data Network (DN)1903 identified by a Data Network Name (DNN). The PDU session may be established at the request of the UE 1901, modified at the request of the UE 1901 and 5GC 1920, and released at the request of the UE 1901 and 5GC 1920, using NAS SM signaling exchanged over the N1 reference point between the UE 1901 and SMF 1924. Upon request from an application server, the 5GC 1920 may trigger a specific application in the UE 1901. In response to receiving the trigger message, the UE 1901 may communicate the trigger message (or related portions/information of the trigger message) to one or more identified applications in the UE 1901. The identified application in UE 1901 may establish a PDU session with a particular DNN. SMF 1924 may check whether the UE 1901 request conforms to user subscription information associated with UE 1901. In this regard, SMF 1924 may retrieve and/or request to receive update notifications from UDM 1927 regarding SMF 1924 tier subscription data.

SMF 1924 may include the following roaming functions: processing local execution to apply QoS SLA (VPLMN); a charging data acquisition and charging interface (VPLMN); lawful interception (in VPLMN for SM events and interfaces to LI systems); and supporting interaction with the foreign DN to transmit signaling for PDU session authorization/authentication through the foreign DN. In a roaming scenario, an N16 reference point between two SMFs 1924 may be included in system 1900, which may be located between another SMF 1924 in a visited network and SMF 1924 in a home network. Additionally, SMF 1924 may present an interface based on an Nsmf service.

NEF 1923 may provide a means for securely exposing services and capabilities provided by 3GPP network functions for third party, internal exposure/re-exposure, application functions (e.g., AF 1928), edge computing or fog computing systems, and the like. In such embodiments, NEF 1923 may authenticate, authorize, and/or limit AF. NEF 1923 may also translate information exchanged with AF 1928 and information exchanged with internal network functions. For example, the NEF 1923 may translate between the AF service identifier and the internal 5GC information. NEF 1923 may also receive information from other Network Functions (NFs) based on their exposed capabilities. This information may be stored as structured data at NEF 1923 or at data store NF using a standardized interface. The stored information may then be re-exposed to other NFs and AFs by NEF 1923 and/or used for other purposes such as analysis. In addition, NEF 1923 may present an interface based on the Nnef service.

NRF 1925 may support a service discovery function, receive NF discovery requests from NF instances, and provide information of discovered NF instances to NF instances. NRF 1925 also maintains information of available NF instances and their supported services. As used herein, the term "instantiation" or the like may refer to the creation of an instance, and "instance" may refer to the specific occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during execution of program code. Additionally, NRF 1925 may present an interface based on the Nnrf service.

PCF 1926 may provide control plane functions to enforce their policy rules and may also support a unified policy framework for managing network behavior. The PCF 1926 may also implement a FE to access subscription information related to policy decisions in the UDR of the UDM 1927. PCF 1926 may communicate with AMF 1921 via an N15 reference point between PCF 1926 and AMF 1921, which may include PCF 1926 in the visited network and AMF 1921 in the case of a roaming scenario. The PCF 1926 may communicate with the AF 1928 via the N5 reference point between the PCF 1926 and the AF 1928; and communicates with SMF 1924 via an N7 reference point between PCF 1926 and SMF 1924. The system 1900 and/or CN 1920 may also include an N24 reference point between the PCF 1926 (in the home network) and the PCF 1926 in the visited network. In addition, PCF 1926 may present an interface based on Npcf services.

The UDM 1927 may process subscription-related information to support processing of communication sessions by network entities and may store subscription data for the UE 1901. For example, subscription data may be transferred between UDM 1927 and AMF 1921 via the N8 reference point between UDM 1927 and AMF. UDM 1927 may include two parts: application FE and UDR (FE and UDR not shown in fig. 19). The UDR may store subscription data and policy data for UDM 1927 and PCF 1926, and/or structured data for exposure and application data (including PFD for application detection, application request information for multiple UEs 1901) for NEF 1923. An interface based on the Nudr service can be presented by UDR 221 to allow UDM 1927, PCF 1926, and NEF 1923 to access a particular set of stored data, as well as to read, update (e.g., add, modify), delete, and subscribe to notifications of relevant data changes in the UDR. The UDM may include a UDM-FE that is responsible for handling credentials, location management, subscription management, and the like. Several different front ends may serve the same user in different transactions. The UDM-FE accesses subscription information stored in the UDR and performs authentication credential processing, user identification processing, access authorization, registration/mobility management, and subscription management. The UDR may interact with SMF 1924 via an N10 reference point between UDM 1927 and SMF 1924. UDM 1927 may also support SMS management, where an SMS-FE implements similar application logic previously discussed. Additionally, UDM 1927 may present a Nudm service based interface.

The AF 1928 may provide application impact on traffic routing, provide access to NCE, and interact with the policy framework for policy control. The NCE may be a mechanism that allows the 5GC 1920 and AF 1928 to provide information to each other via NEF 1923, which may be used for edge computing implementations. In such implementations, network operator and third party services may be hosted near the accessory's UE 1901 access point to enable efficient service delivery with reduced end-to-end delay and load on the transport network. For edge calculation implementations, the 5GC may select a UPF 1902 near the UE 1901 and perform traffic steering from the UPF 1902 to the DN 1903 via the N6 interface. This may be based on UE subscription data, UE location and information provided by AF 1928. In this way, the AF 1928 may affect UPF (re) selection and traffic routing. Based on operator deployment, the network operator may allow the AF 1928 to interact directly with the relevant NFs when the AF 1928 is considered a trusted entity. In addition, the AF 1928 may present a Naf service-based interface.

The NSSF 1929 may select a set of network slice instances to serve the UE 1901. NSSF 1929 may also determine allowed NSSAIs and mappings to subscribed S-NSSAIs, if desired. The NSSF 1929 may also determine a set of AMFs, or a list of candidate AMFs 1921, to serve the UE 1901 based on a suitable configuration and possibly by querying the NRF 1925. The selection of a set of network slice instances for UE 1901 may be triggered by AMF 1921, where UE 1901 registers by interacting with NSSF 1929, which may cause AMF 1921 to change. NSSF 1929 may interact with AMF 1921 via the N22 reference point between AMF 1921 and NSSF 1929; and may communicate with another NSSF 1929 in the visited network via the N31 reference point (not shown in fig. 19). Additionally, NSSF 1929 may present an interface based on the NSSF service.

As previously discussed, the CN 1920 may include a SMSF, which may be responsible for SMS subscription checking and verification and relaying SM messages to the UE 1901 from and to other entities, such as an SMS-GMSC/IWMSC/SMS router. The SMS may also interact with AMF 1921 and UDM 1927 for a notification process such that UE 1901 may be used for SMS transmissions (e.g., set a UE unreachable flag, and notify UDM 1927 when UE 1901 is available for SMS).

CN 1720 may also include other elements not shown in fig. 19, such as a data storage system/architecture, 5G-EIR, SEPP, and the like. The data storage system may include SDSF, UDSF, etc. Any NF may store unstructured data into or retrieve from the UDSF (e.g., UE context) via the N18 reference point between any NF and the UDSF (not shown in fig. 19). A single NF may share a UDSF for storing its corresponding unstructured data, or the individual NFs may each have their own UDSF located at or near the single NF. Additionally, the UDSF may present an interface based on the Nudsf service (not shown in fig. 19). The 5G-EIR may be an NF that examines the state of PEI to determine whether to blacklist a particular equipment/entity from the network; and SEPP may be a non-transparent proxy that performs topology hiding, message filtering and policing on the inter-PLMN control plane interface.

Additionally, there may be more reference points and/or service-based interfaces between NF services in the NF; however, for clarity, fig. 19 omits these interfaces and reference points. In one example, the CN 1920 may include an Nx interface, which is an inter-CN interface between the MME (e.g., MME 1821) and the AMF 1921, in order to enable interworking between the CN 1920 and the CN 1820. Other example interfaces/reference points may include an N5G-EIR service based interface presented by 5G-EIR, an N27 reference point between NRFs in visited networks and NRFs in home networks; and an N31 reference point between the NSSF in the visited network and the NSSF in the home network.

Fig. 20 shows an example of infrastructure equipment 2000 according to various embodiments. Infrastructure equipment 2000 (or "system 2000") may be implemented as a base station, a radio head, a RAN node (such as RAN node 1711 and/or AP 1706 as previously shown and described), an application server 1730, and/or any other element/device discussed herein. In other examples, system 2000 may be implemented in or by a UE.

The system 2000 includes: an application circuit 2005, a baseband circuit 2010, one or more Radio Front End Modules (RFEM)2015, a memory circuit 2020, a Power Management Integrated Circuit (PMIC)2025, a power tee circuit 2030, a network controller circuit 2035, a network interface connector 2040, a satellite positioning circuit 2045, and a user interface 2050. In some embodiments, device 2000 may include additional elements, such as, for example, memory/storage, a display, a camera, a sensor, or an input/output (I/O) interface. In other embodiments, the components described below may be included in more than one device. For example, the circuitry may be included in more than one device for a CRAN, vbub, or other similar implementation, individually.

The application circuit 2005 includes circuits such as, but not limited to: one or more processors (processor cores), cache memory, and one or more of: low dropout regulator (LDO), interrupt controller, serial interface such as SPI, I²A C or universal programmable serial interface module, a Real Time Clock (RTC), a timing counter including an interval timer and a watchdog timer, a universal input/output (I/O or IO), a memory card controller such as a Secure Digital (SD) multimedia card (MMC) or similar product, a Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface, a Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) interface, and a Joint Test Access Group (JTAG) test access port. The processor (or core) of the application circuitry 2005 may be coupled to or may include memory/storage elements and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory/storage to enable various application programs or operating systems to run on the system 2000. In some implementations, the memory/storage elements mayIs an on-chip memory circuit that may include any suitable volatile and/or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM, flash memory, solid state memory, and/or any other type of memory device technology, such as those discussed herein.

The processors of application circuitry 2005 may include, for example, one or more processor Cores (CPUs), one or more application processors, one or more Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), one or more Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) processors, one or more Acorn RISC Machine (ARM) processors, one or more Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC) processors, one or more Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), one or more FPGAs, one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, or any suitable combination thereof. In some embodiments, the application circuitry 2005 may include or may be a dedicated processor/controller for operating in accordance with various embodiments herein. As an example, the processor of the application circuit 2005 may include one or moreA processor, such as an A5-A9 processor; intel (Intel)OrA processor; advanced Micro Devices (AMD)Processor, Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) orA processor; ARM-based processors authorized by ARM Holdings, Ltd., such as the ARM Cortex-A family of processors and the like provided by Cavium (TM), IncFrom MIPS TechA MIPS-based design of nonlogies, inc, such as a MIPS Warrior class P processor; and so on. In some embodiments, system 2000 may not utilize application circuitry 2005 and may instead include a dedicated processor/controller to process IP data received, for example, from an EPC or 5 GC.

In some implementations, the application circuitry 2005 can include one or more hardware accelerators, which can be microprocessors, programmable processing devices, and the like. The one or more hardware accelerators may include, for example, Computer Vision (CV) and/or Deep Learning (DL) accelerators. For example, the programmable processing device may be one or more Field Programmable Devices (FPDs), such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), etc.; programmable Logic Devices (PLDs), such as complex PLDs (cplds), large capacity PLDs (hcplds), and the like; ASICs, such as structured ASICs and the like; programmable soc (psoc); and so on. In such implementations, the circuitry of the application circuitry 2005 can include a logic block or logic framework, as well as other interconnected resources that can be programmed to perform various functions, such as procedures, methods, functions, etc. of the various embodiments discussed herein. In such implementations, the circuitry of the application circuit 2005 can include memory cells (e.g., erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory (e.g., Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), anti-fuse, etc.) for storing logic blocks, logic architectures, data, etc., in a look-up table (LUT) or the like.

Baseband circuitry 2010 may be implemented, for example, as a solder-in substrate comprising one or more integrated circuits, a single packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board, or a multi-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. The various hardware electronics of baseband circuit 2010 are discussed below with reference to fig. 22.

The user interface circuit 2050 may include one or more user interfaces designed to enable a user to interact with the system 2000 or a peripheral interface designed to enable peripheral interaction with the system 2000. The user interface may include, but is not limited to, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), one or more indicators (e.g., Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs)), a physical keyboard or keypad, a mouse, a touchpad, a touch screen, a speaker or other audio emitting device, a microphone, a printer, a scanner, a headset, a display screen or display device, and so forth. The peripheral component interfaces may include, but are not limited to, a non-volatile memory port, a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port, an audio jack, a power interface, and the like.

The Radio Front End Module (RFEM)2015 may include millimeter wave (mmWave) RFEM and one or more sub-millimeter wave Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFICs). In some implementations, the one or more sub-millimeter wave RFICs may be physically separate from the millimeter wave RFEM. RFICs may include connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays (see, e.g., antenna array 22111 of fig. 22 below), and RFEM may be connected to multiple antennas. In alternative implementations, the radio functions of both millimeter-wave and sub-millimeter-wave may be implemented in the same physical RFEM 2015 that incorporates both millimeter-wave antennas and sub-millimeter-waves.

The memory circuitry 2020 may include one or more of the following: volatile memory including Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) and/or Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM), non-volatile memory (NVM) including high speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as "flash memory"), phase change random access memory (PRAM), Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM), and the like, and may incorporateAnda three-dimensional (3D) cross point (XPOINT) memory. The memory circuit 2020 may be implemented as one or more of the following: a solder-in package integrated circuit, a socket memory module, and a plug-in memory card.

The PMIC 2025 may include a voltage regulator, a surge protector, a power alarm detection circuit, and one or more backup power sources, such as a battery or a capacitor. The power supply alarm detection circuit may detect one or more of power down (under-voltage) and surge (over-voltage) conditions. Power tee circuit 2030 may provide power drawn from a network cable to provide both power and data connections for infrastructure equipment 2000 using a single cable.

The network controller circuit 2035 may provide connectivity to the network using a standard network interface protocol such as ethernet, GRE tunnel based ethernet, multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) based ethernet, or some other suitable protocol. The infrastructure equipment 2000 may be provided with/from a network connection via network interface connector 2040 using a physical connection, which may be an electrical connection (commonly referred to as a "copper interconnect"), an optical connection, or a wireless connection. Network controller circuit 2035 may include one or more special purpose processors and/or FPGAs for communicating using one or more of the aforementioned protocols. In some implementations, the network controller circuit 2035 may include multiple controllers to provide connectivity to other networks using the same or different protocols.

The positioning circuitry 2045 includes circuitry for receiving and decoding signals transmitted/broadcast by a positioning network of a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Examples of navigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) include the Global Positioning System (GPS) in the united states, the global navigation system in russia (GLONASS), the galileo system in the european union, the beidou navigation satellite system in china, the regional navigation system or GNSS augmentation system (e.g., navigating with indian constellations (NAVICs), the quasi-zenith satellite system in japan (QZSS), the doppler orbit diagram in france, and satellite integrated radio positioning (DORIS)), etc. The positioning circuitry 2045 includes various hardware elements (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, etc. for facilitating OTA communication) to communicate with components of a positioning network such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some implementations, the positioning circuitry 2045 may include a micro technology (micro PNT) IC for positioning, navigation, and timing that performs position tracking/estimation using a master timing clock without GNSS assistance. The positioning circuitry 2045 may also be part of or interact with the baseband circuitry 2010 and/or the RFEM 2015 to communicate with nodes and components of the positioning network. The positioning circuitry 2045 may also provide location data and/or time data to the application circuitry 2005, which can use the data to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (e.g., RAN node 1711, etc.), and so forth.

The components shown in fig. 20 may communicate with each other using interface circuitry that may include any number of bus and/or Interconnect (IX) technologies, such as Industry Standard Architecture (ISA), extended ISA (eisa), Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), peripheral component interconnect extension (PCI x), PCI express (PCIe), or any number of other technologies. The bus/IX may be a proprietary bus, for example, used in SoC-based systems. Other bus/IX systems may be included, such as I²C-interface, SPI-interface, point-to-point interface, power bus, etc.

Fig. 21 illustrates an example of a platform 2100 (or "device 2100") according to various embodiments. In an embodiment, the computer platform 2100 may be adapted to function as the UE 1701, the UE 1801, the UE 1901, the application server 1730, and/or any other element/device discussed herein. Platform 2100 may include any combination of the components shown in the examples. Components of platform 2100 may be implemented as Integrated Circuits (ICs), portions of ICs, discrete electronic devices or other modules, logic, hardware, software, firmware, or combinations thereof that fit within computer platform 2100, or as components that are otherwise incorporated within the chassis of a larger system. The block diagram of fig. 21 is intended to illustrate a high-level view of the components of computer platform 2100. However, some of the illustrated components may be omitted, additional components may be present, and different arrangements of the illustrated components may occur in other implementations.

The application circuitry 2105 includes circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, and LDO, interrupt controller, serial interface (such as SPI), I²One or more of a C or universal programmable serial interface module, RTC, timing counters (including interval timers and watchdog timers), universal I/O, memory card controller (such as SD MMC or similar), USB interface, MIPI interface, and JTAG test access port. The processor (or core) of the application circuitry 2105 may be coupled with memory/storage elements orIncluding memory/storage elements and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory/storage to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the system 2100. In some implementations, the memory/storage elements may be on-chip memory circuits that may include any suitable volatile and/or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM, flash memory, solid state memory, and/or any other type of memory device technology, such as those discussed herein.

The processors of application circuitry 2005 may include, for example, one or more processor cores, one or more application processors, one or more GPUs, one or more RISC processors, one or more ARM processors, one or more CISC processors, one or more DSPs, one or more FPGAs, one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, multi-threaded processors, ultra-low voltage processors, embedded processors, some other known processing elements, or any suitable combination thereof. In some embodiments, the application circuitry 2005 may include or may be a dedicated processor/controller for operating in accordance with various embodiments herein.

As an example, the processor of the application circuitry 2105 may include one or moreA processor, such as an A5-A9 processor; the processor of the application circuitry 2105 may also be one or more of: based onArchitecture Core^TMSuch as a Quark^TM、Atom^TMI3, i5, i7, or MCU grade processors, or available from Santa Clara, CalifCompany (C.) (Corporation, Santa Clara, CA); advanced Micro Devices (AMD)A processor or Accelerated Processing Unit (APU); is obtained fromSnapdagon of Technologies, Inc^TMA processor; the number of Texas Instruments was,open type multimedia application platform (OMAP)^TMA processor; MIPS-based designs from MIPS Technologies, inc, such as MIPS Warrior M-class, Warrior I-class, and Warrior P-class processors; ARM-based designs that obtain ARM Holdings, Ltd. And the like. In some implementations, the application circuit 2105 may be part of a system on a chip (SoC), where the application circuit 2105 and other components are formed as a single integrated circuit or a single package, such asCompany (C.) (Corporation) of the company^TMOr Galileo^TMAnd (6) an SoC board.

Additionally or alternatively, the application circuitry 2105 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more Field Programmable Devices (FPDs) such as FPGAs, etc.; programmable Logic Devices (PLDs), such as complex PLDs (cplds), large capacity PLDs (hcplds), and the like; ASICs, such as structured ASICs and the like; programmable soc (psoc); and so on. In such embodiments, the circuitry of the application circuitry 2105 may include a logic block or logic architecture, as well as other interconnect resources that may be programmed to perform various functions, such as the processes, methods, functions, etc., of the various embodiments discussed herein. In such embodiments, the circuitry of the application circuit 2105 may include memory cells (e.g., erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory (e.g., Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), anti-fuse, etc.) for storing logic blocks, logic architectures, data, etc., in a look-up table (LUT) or the like.

The baseband circuitry 2110 may be implemented, for example, as a solder-in substrate including one or more integrated circuits, a single package integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board, or a multi-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. Various hardware electronics of the baseband circuitry 2110 are discussed below with reference to fig. 22.

The RFEM 2115 may include millimeter wave (mmWave) RFEM and one or more sub-millimeter wave Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFICs). In some implementations, the one or more sub-millimeter wave RFICs may be physically separate from the millimeter wave RFEM. RFICs may include connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays (see, e.g., antenna array 22111 of fig. 22 below), and RFEM may be connected to multiple antennas. In alternative implementations, the radio functions of both millimeter and sub-millimeter waves may be implemented in the same physical RFEM 2115 that incorporates both millimeter wave antennas and sub-millimeter waves.

Memory circuitry 2120 may include any number and type of memory devices for providing a given amount of system memory. For example, the memory circuitry 2120 may include one or more of the following: volatile memory including Random Access Memory (RAM), Dynamic RAM (DRAM), and/or Synchronous Dynamic RAM (SDRAM); and non-volatile memories (NVM), including high speed electrically erasable memory (often referred to as flash memory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM), etc. The memory circuit 2120 may be developed according to Joint Electronic Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) Low Power Double Data Rate (LPDDR) -based designs such as LPDDR2, LPDDR3, LPDDR4, and the like. The memory circuit 2120 may be implemented as one or more of the following: a solder-in packaged integrated circuit, a Single Die Package (SDP), a Dual Die Package (DDP), or a quad die package (Q17P), a socket memory module, a dual in-line memory module (DIMM) including a micro DIMM or a mini DIMM, And/or soldered to a motherboard via a Ball Grid Array (BGA). In a low power implementation, memory circuit 2120 may be an on-chip memory or register associated with application circuitry 2105. To provide persistent storage for information such as data, applications, operating systems, etc., the memory circuit 2120 may include one or more mass storage devices, which may include, among other things, a Solid State Disk Drive (SSDD), a Hard Disk Drive (HDD), a miniature HDD, a resistance change memory, a phase change memory, a holographic memory, or a chemical memory. For example, computer platform 2100 may incorporate a software program fromAnda three-dimensional (3D) cross point (XPOINT) memory.

Removable memory circuit 2123 may comprise a device, circuitry, housing/casing, port or receptacle, etc. for coupling portable data storage device with platform 2100. These portable data storage devices may be used for mass storage and may include, for example, flash memory cards (e.g., Secure Digital (SD) cards, micro SD cards, xD picture cards, etc.), as well as USB flash drives, optical disks, external HDDs, and the like.

Platform 2100 may also include interface circuitry (not shown) for interfacing external devices to platform 2100. External devices connected to platform 2100 via this interface circuitry include sensor circuitry 2121 and electromechanical components (EMC)2122, as well as removable memory devices coupled to removable memory circuitry 2123.

The sensor circuit 2121 includes a device, module, or subsystem that is intended to detect an event or change in its environment, and sends information (sensor data) about the detected event to some other device, module, subsystem, or the like. Examples of such sensors include, among others: an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) including an accelerometer, gyroscope, and/or magnetometer; a micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) or a nano-electromechanical system (NEMS) comprising a three-axis accelerometer, a three-axis gyroscope, and/or a magnetometer; a liquid level sensor; a flow sensor; temperature sensors (e.g., thermistors); a pressure sensor; an air pressure sensor; a gravimeter; a height indicator; an image capture device (e.g., a camera or a lensless aperture); a light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensor; proximity sensors (e.g., infrared radiation detectors, etc.), depth sensors, ambient light sensors, ultrasonic transceivers; a microphone or other similar audio capture device; and the like.

EMC 2122 includes devices, modules, or subsystems aimed at enabling platform 2100 to change its state, position, and/or orientation, or to move or control a mechanism or (sub) system. Additionally, EMC 2122 may be configured to generate and send messages/signaling to other components of platform 2100 to indicate a current state of EMC 2122. Examples of EMC 2122 include one or more power switches, relays (including electromechanical relays (EMRs) and/or Solid State Relays (SSRs)), actuators (e.g., valve actuators, etc.), audible acoustic generators, visual warning devices, motors (e.g., DC motors, stepper motors, etc.), wheels, propellers, claws, clamps, hooks, and/or other similar electromechanical components. In an embodiment, the platform 2100 is configured to operate one or more EMCs 2122 based on one or more capture events and/or instructions or control signals received from a service provider and/or various clients.

In some implementations, the interface circuitry may connect the platform 2100 with the positioning circuitry 2145. The positioning circuitry 2145 comprises circuitry for receiving and decoding signals transmitted/broadcast by a positioning network of a GNSS. Examples of navigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) may include GPS in the united states, GLONASS in russia, galileo system in the european union, beidou navigation satellite system in china, regional navigation systems, or GNSS augmentation systems (e.g., NAVIC, QZSS in japan, DORIS in france, etc.), and so forth. The positioning circuitry 2145 includes various hardware elements (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, etc. to facilitate OTA communication) to communicate with components of a positioning network such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some embodiments, the positioning circuitry 2145 may include a miniature PNT IC that performs position tracking/estimation using a master timing clock without GNSS assistance. The positioning circuitry 2145 may also be part of or interact with the baseband circuitry 2010 and/or the RFEM 2115 to communicate with nodes and components of a positioning network. The positioning circuitry 2145 may also provide location data and/or time data to the application circuitry 2105, which may use the data to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (e.g., radio base stations), for turn-by-turn navigation applications, and so on.

In some implementations, the interface circuitry may connect the platform 2100 with Near Field Communication (NFC) circuitry 2140. NFC circuitry 2140 is configured to provide contactless proximity communication based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) standards, where magnetic field induction is used to enable communication between NFC circuitry 2140 and NFC enabled devices (e.g., "NFC contacts") external to platform 2100. The NFC circuitry 2140 includes an NFC controller coupled to the antenna element and a processor coupled to the NFC controller. The NFC controller may be a chip/IC that provides NFC functionality to the NFC circuitry 2140 by executing NFC controller firmware and an NFC stack. The NFC stack may be executable by the processor to control the NFC controller, and the NFC controller firmware may be executable by the NFC controller to control the antenna element to transmit the short-range RF signal. The RF signal may power a passive NFC tag (e.g., a microchip embedded in a sticker or wristband) to transfer stored data to NFC circuitry 2140, or initiate a data transfer between NFC circuitry 2140 and another active NFC device (e.g., a smartphone or NFC-enabled POS terminal) in proximity to platform 2100.

Driver circuitry 2146 may include software elements and hardware elements for controlling specific devices embedded in platform 2100, attached to platform 2100, or otherwise communicatively coupled with platform 2100. Drive circuitry 2146 may include various drivers to allow other components of platform 2100 to interact with or control various input/output (I/O) devices that may be present within or connected to platform 2100. For example, the driving circuit 2146 may include: a display driver to control and allow access to a display device, a touch screen driver to control and allow access to a touch screen interface of platform 2100, a sensor driver to obtain sensor readings of sensor circuit 2121 and control and allow access to sensor circuit 2121, an EMC driver to obtain actuator positions of EMC 2122 and/or control and allow access to EMC 2122, a camera driver to control and allow access to an embedded image capture device, an audio driver to control and allow access to one or more audio devices.

A Power Management Integrated Circuit (PMIC)2125 (also referred to as a "power management circuit 2125") may manage the power provided to the various components of platform 2100. In particular, PMIC 2125 may control power supply selection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-DC conversion with respect to baseband circuitry 2110. The PMIC 2125 may typically be included when the platform 2100 is capable of being powered by the battery 2130, e.g., when the device is included in the UE 1701, the UE 1801, and the UE 1901.

In some embodiments, PMIC 2125 may control or otherwise be part of various power saving mechanisms of platform 2100. For example, if the platform 2100 is in an RRC _ Connected state in which it is still Connected to the RAN node because it expects to receive traffic soon, after a period of inactivity the platform may enter a state referred to as discontinuous reception mode (DRX). During this state, platform 2100 may be powered down for a short time interval, thereby saving power. If there is no data traffic activity for an extended period of time, the platform 2100 can transition to an RRC Idle state in which the device is disconnected from the network and no operations such as channel quality feedback, handover, etc. are performed. The platform 2100 enters a very low power state and performs paging, where the device again periodically wakes up to listen to the network and then powers down again. The platform 2100 may not receive data in this state; to receive data, the platform must transition back to the RRC _ Connected state. The additional power-save mode may cause the device to be unavailable to the network for longer than the paging interval (ranging from a few seconds to a few hours). During this time, the device is completely unable to connect to the network and can be completely powered down. Any data transmitted during this period will cause significant delay and the delay is assumed to be acceptable.

The battery 2130 may provide power to the platform 2100, but in some examples, the platform 2100 may be installed deployed in a fixed location and may have a power source coupled to a power grid. Battery 2130 may be a lithium ion battery, a metal-air battery (such as a zinc-air battery, an aluminum-air battery, a lithium-air battery, etc.). In some implementations, such as in V2X applications, battery 2130 may be a typical lead-acid automotive battery.

In some implementations, battery 2130 may be a "smart battery" that includes or is coupled to a Battery Management System (BMS) or a battery monitoring integrated circuit. A BMS may be included in the platform 2100 to track the state of charge (SoCh) of the battery 2130. The BMS may be used to monitor other parameters of the battery 2130 to provide fault predictions, such as the state of health (SoH) and the functional state (SoF) of the battery 2130. The BMS may communicate information of the battery 2130 to the application circuitry 2105 or other components of the platform 2100. The BMS may also include an analog-to-digital (ADC) converter that allows the application circuit 2105 to directly monitor the voltage of the battery 2130 or the current from the battery 2130. The battery parameters may be used to determine actions that platform 2100 may perform, such as transmission frequency, network operation, sensing frequency, and so on.

A power block or other power source coupled to the grid may be coupled with the BMS to charge the battery 2130. In some examples, power block XS30 may be replaced with a wireless power receiver to obtain power wirelessly, for example, through a loop antenna in computer platform 2100. In these examples, the wireless battery charging circuit may be included in a BMS. The particular charging circuit selected may depend on the size of battery 2130, and thus the current required. Charging may be performed using the aviation fuel standard published by the aviation fuel consortium, the Qi wireless charging standard published by the wireless power consortium, or the Rezence charging standard published by the wireless power consortium.

User interface circuitry 2150 includes various input/output (I/O) devices present within or connected to platform 2100, and includes one or more user interfaces designed to enable user interaction with platform 2100 and/or peripheral component interfaces designed to enable interaction with peripheral components of platform 2100. The user interface circuit 2150 includes input device circuitry and output device circuitry. The input device circuitry includes any physical or virtual means for accepting input, including, inter alia, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), a physical keyboard, a keypad, a mouse, a touch pad, a touch screen, a microphone, a scanner, a headset, etc. Output device circuitry includes any physical or virtual means for displaying information or otherwise conveying information, such as sensor readings, actuator position, or other similar information. Output device circuitry may include any number and/or combination of audio or visual displays, including, among other things, one or more simple visual outputs/indicators (e.g., binary status indicators (e.g., Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs)) and multi-character visual outputs, or more complex outputs, such as a display device or touch screen (e.g., Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs), LED displays, quantum dot displays, projectors, etc.), where output of characters, graphics, multimedia objects, etc., is generated or produced by operation of platform 2100. Actuators for providing haptic feedback, etc.). In another example, NFC circuitry may be included to read an electronic tag and/or connect with another NFC enabled device, the NFC circuitry including an NFC controller and a processing device coupled with an antenna element. The peripheral component interfaces may include, but are not limited to, a non-volatile memory port, a USB port, an audio jack, a power interface, and the like.

Although not shown, the components of platform 2100 may communicate with one another using suitable bus or Interconnect (IX) technology, which may include any number of technologies, including ISA, EISA, PCI x, PCIe, Time Triggered Protocol (TTP) systems, FlexRay systems, or any number of other technologies. The bus/IX may be a proprietary bus/IX, for example, for use in SoC-based systems. Other bus/IX systems may be included, such as I²C-interface, SPI-interface, point-to-point interface, power bus, etc.

Fig. 22 illustrates exemplary components of a baseband circuit 2210 and a Radio Front End Module (RFEM)2215 in accordance with various embodiments. Baseband circuit 2210 corresponds to baseband circuit 2010 of fig. 20 and baseband circuit 2110 of fig. 21, respectively. RFEM 2215 corresponds to RFEM 2015 of fig. 20 and RFEM 2115 of fig. 21, respectively. As shown, RFEM 2215 may include at least Radio Frequency (RF) circuitry 2206, Front End Module (FEM) circuitry 2208, antenna array 2211 coupled together as shown.

The baseband circuitry 2210 includes circuitry and/or control logic components configured to perform various radio/network protocols and radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuitry 2206. The radio control functions may include, but are not limited to, signal modulation/demodulation, encoding/decoding, radio frequency shifting, and the like. In some embodiments, the modulation/demodulation circuitry of baseband circuitry 2210 may include Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping/demapping functions. In some embodiments, the encoding/decoding circuitry of baseband circuitry 2210 may include convolutional, tail-biting convolutional, turbo, viterbi, or Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) encoder/decoder functionality. Embodiments of the modulation/demodulation and encoder/decoder functions are not limited to these examples, and other suitable functions may be included in other embodiments. The baseband circuitry 2210 is configured to process baseband signals received from the receive signal path of the RF circuitry 2206 and generate baseband signals for the transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 2206. The baseband circuitry 2210 is configured to connect with application circuitry 2005/2105 (see fig. 20 and 21) to generate and process baseband signals and control the operation of the RF circuitry 2206. The baseband circuitry 2210 may handle various radio control functions.

The aforementioned circuitry and/or control logic components of baseband circuitry 2210 may include one or more single-core or multi-core processors. For example, the one or more processors may include a 3G baseband processor 2204A, a 4G/LTE baseband processor 2204B, a 5G/NR baseband processor 2204C, or some other baseband processor 2204D for other existing generations, generations under development or to be developed in the future (e.g., sixth generation (6G), etc.). In other embodiments, some or all of the functionality of the baseband processors 2204A-2204D may be included in modules stored in memory 2204G and executed via a Central Processing Unit (CPU) 2204E.In other embodiments, some or all of the functions of the baseband processors 2204A-2204D may be provided as hardware accelerators (e.g., FPGAs, ASICs, etc.) loaded with appropriate bit streams or logic blocks stored in respective memory units. In various embodiments, memory 2204G stores program code for a real-time os (rtos) that, when executed by CPU2204E (or other baseband processor), will cause CPU2204E (or other baseband processor) to manage resources, schedule tasks, etc. of baseband circuitry 2210. Examples of RTOS may includeProviding Operating System Embedded (OSE) ^TMFrom MentorProvided nucleous RTOS^TMFrom MentorVersatile Real-Time Executive (VRTX) provided by ExpressProvided ThreadX^TMFromProvided with FreeRTOS, REX OS, by Open Kernel (OK)The provided OKL4, or any other suitable RTOS, such as those discussed herein. In addition, baseband circuitry 2210 includes one or more audio Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) 2204F. The audio DSP 2204F includes elements for compression/decompression and echo cancellation, and may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments.

In some embodiments, each of the processors 2204A-2204E includes a respective memory interface to send/receive data to/from the memory 2204G. Baseband circuitry 2210 may also includeOne or more interfaces for communicatively coupling to other circuits/devices, such as an interface for sending/receiving data to/from memory external to baseband circuitry 2210; an application circuit interface for sending/receiving data to/from the application circuit 2005/2105 of fig. 20-22; an RF circuit interface for transmitting/receiving data to/from the RF circuit 2206 of fig. 22; for receiving data from one or more wireless hardware elements (e.g., Near Field Communication (NFC) components, Low power consumption parts,Components, etc.) wireless hardware connection interfaces that transmit/receive data from these wireless hardware elements; and a power management interface for transmitting/receiving power or control signals to/from the PMIC 2125.

In an alternative embodiment (which may be combined with the embodiments described above), baseband circuitry 2210 includes one or more digital baseband systems coupled to each other and to the CPU subsystem, audio subsystem, and interface subsystem via the interconnection subsystem. The digital baseband subsystem may also be coupled to the digital baseband interface and the mixed signal baseband subsystem via another interconnection subsystem. Each of the interconnect subsystems may include a bus system, point-to-point connections, a Network On Chip (NOC) fabric, and/or some other suitable bus or interconnect technology, such as those discussed herein. The audio subsystem may include DSP circuitry, buffer memory, program memory, speech processing accelerator circuitry, data converter circuitry such as analog-to-digital converter circuitry and digital-to-analog converter circuitry, analog circuitry including one or more of amplifiers and filters, and/or other similar components. In one aspect of the disclosure, the baseband circuitry 2210 may include protocol processing circuitry with one or more instances of control circuitry (not shown) to provide control functionality for digital baseband circuitry and/or radio frequency circuitry (e.g., radio front end module 2215).

Although not shown in fig. 22, in some embodiments, baseband circuitry 2210 includes various processing devices to operate one or more wireless communication protocols (e.g., "multi-protocol baseband processors" or "protocol processing circuits") and various processing devices to implement PHY layer functions. In these embodiments, the PHY layer functions include the aforementioned radio control functions. In these embodiments, the protocol processing circuitry operates or implements various protocol layers/entities of one or more wireless communication protocols. In a first example, the protocol processing circuitry may operate the LTE protocol entity and/or the 5G/NR protocol entity when the baseband circuitry 2210 and/or the RF circuitry 2206 are part of millimeter wave communication circuitry or some other suitable cellular communication circuitry. In a first example, the protocol processing circuitry will operate MAC, RLC, PDCP, SDAP, RRC and NAS functionality. In a second example, the protocol processing circuitry may operate one or more IEEE-based protocols when the baseband circuitry 2210 and/or the RF circuitry 2206 are part of a Wi-Fi communication system. In a second example, the protocol processing circuit will operate Wi-Fi MAC and Logical Link Control (LLC) functions. The protocol processing circuitry may include one or more memory structures (e.g., 2204G) for storing program code and data used to operate the protocol functions, and one or more processing cores for executing the program code and performing various operations using the data. Baseband circuitry 2210 may also support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol.

The various hardware elements of baseband circuitry 2210 discussed herein may be implemented, for example, as a solder-in substrate comprising one or more Integrated Circuits (ICs), a single-package integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board, or a multi-chip module containing two or more ICs. In one example, the components of baseband circuitry 2210 may be combined in a single chip or a single chipset, or disposed on the same circuit board, as appropriate. In another example, some or all of the component parts of the baseband circuitry 2210 and the RF circuitry 2206 may be implemented together, such as, for example, a system on a chip (SoC) or a System In Package (SiP). In another example, some or all of the component parts of baseband circuitry 2210 may be implemented as separate socs communicatively coupled with RF circuitry 2206 (or multiple instances of RF circuitry 2206). In yet another example, some or all of the component parts of baseband circuit 2210 and application circuit 2005/2105 may be implemented together as separate socs mounted to the same circuit board (e.g., a "multi-chip package").

In some embodiments, baseband circuitry 2210 may provide communication compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, baseband circuitry 2210 may support communication with E-UTRAN or other WMANs, WLANs, WPANs. Embodiments in which baseband circuitry 2210 is configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuitry.

The RF circuitry 2206 can enable communication with a wireless network through a non-solid medium using modulated electromagnetic radiation. In various implementations, the RF circuitry 2206 may include switches, filters, amplifiers, and the like to facilitate communication with a wireless network. RF circuitry 2206 may include a receive signal path that may include circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from FEM circuitry 2208 and provide baseband signals to baseband circuitry 2210. The RF circuitry 2206 may also include a transmit signal path, which may include circuitry for upconverting baseband signals provided by the baseband circuitry 2210 and providing an RF output signal to the FEM circuitry 2208 for transmission.

In some embodiments, the receive signal path of the RF circuitry 2206 may include mixer circuitry 2206a, amplifier circuitry 2206b, and filter circuitry 2206 c. In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 2206 may include filter circuitry 2206c and mixer circuitry 2206 a. The RF circuitry 2206 may also include synthesizer circuitry 2206d for synthesizing the frequencies used by the mixer circuitry 2206a of the receive and transmit signal paths. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 2206a of the receive signal path may be configured to down-convert the RF signal received from the FEM circuit 2208 based on the synthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuit 2206 d. The amplifier circuit 2206b may be configured to amplify the downconverted signal, and the filter circuit 2206c may be a Low Pass Filter (LPF) or a Band Pass Filter (BPF) configured to remove unwanted signals from the downconverted signal to generate an output baseband signal. The output baseband signal may be provided to baseband circuitry 2210 for further processing. In some embodiments, the output baseband signal may be a zero frequency baseband signal, although this is not required. In some embodiments, mixer circuit 2206a of the receive signal path may comprise a passive mixer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 2206a of the transmit signal path may be configured to upconvert an input baseband signal based on a synthesis frequency provided by the synthesizer circuitry 2206d to generate an RF output signal for the FEM circuitry 2208. The baseband signal may be provided by baseband circuitry 2210 and may be filtered by filter circuitry 2206 c.

In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 2206a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 2206a of the transmit signal path may comprise two or more mixers and may be arranged for quadrature down-conversion and quadrature up-conversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 2206a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 2206a of the transmit signal path may comprise two or more mixers and may be arranged for image rejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 2206a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 2206a of the transmit signal path may be arranged for direct down-conversion and direct up-conversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 2206a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 2206a of the transmit signal path may be configured for superheterodyne operation.

In some embodiments, the output baseband signal and the input baseband signal may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternative embodiments, the output baseband signal and the input baseband signal may be digital baseband signals. In these alternative embodiments, RF circuitry 2206 may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) circuitry and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry, and baseband circuitry 2210 may include a digital baseband interface for communicating with RF circuitry 2206.

In some dual-mode embodiments, separate radio IC circuits may be provided to process signals for each spectrum, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 2206d may be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N/N +1 synthesizer, although the scope of embodiments is not limited in this respect as other types of frequency synthesizers may also be suitable. Synthesizer circuit 2206d may be, for example, a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer including a phase locked loop with a frequency divider.

The synthesizer circuit 2206d may be configured to synthesize an output frequency based on the frequency input and the divider control input for use by the mixer circuit 2206a of the RF circuit 2206. In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuit 2206d may be a fractional N/N +1 synthesizer.

In some embodiments, the frequency input may be provided by a Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO), although this is not required. The divider control input may be provided by baseband circuit 2210 or application circuit 2005/2105 depending on the desired output frequency. In some implementations, the divider control input (e.g., N) may be determined from a look-up table based on the channel indicated by the application circuit 2005/2105.

The synthesizer circuit 2206d of the RF circuit 2206 may include a frequency divider, a Delay Locked Loop (DLL), a multiplexer, and a phase accumulator. In some embodiments, the frequency divider may be a dual-mode frequency divider (DMD) and the phase accumulator may be a Digital Phase Accumulator (DPA). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured to divide an input signal by N or N +1 (e.g., based on a carry) to provide a fractional division ratio. In some example embodiments, a DLL may include a cascaded, tunable, delay element, a phase detector, a charge pump, and a D-type flip-flop set. In these embodiments, the delay elements may be configured to divide the VCO period into Nd equal phase groups, where Nd is the number of delay elements in the delay line. Thus, the DLL provides negative feedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle.

In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuit 2206d may be configured to generate a carrier frequency as the output frequency, while in other embodiments the output frequency may be a multiple of the carrier frequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrier frequency) and used with a quadrature generator and divider circuit to generate a plurality of signals at the carrier frequency having a plurality of different phases relative to each other. In some implementations, the output frequency may be the LO frequency (fLO). In some embodiments, RF circuitry 2206 may include an IQ/polarity converter.

FEM circuitry 2208 may include a receive signal path that may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from antenna array 2211, amplify the received signals, and provide amplified versions of the received signals to RF circuitry 2206 for further processing. The FEM circuitry 2208 may also include a transmit signal path, which may include circuitry configured to amplify transmit signals provided by the RF circuitry 2206 for transmission by one or more antenna elements in the antenna array 2211. In various implementations, amplification through transmit or receive signal paths may be accomplished only in the RF circuitry 2206, only in the FEM circuitry 2208, or both the RF circuitry 2206 and the FEM circuitry 2208.

In some implementations, the FEM circuitry 2208 may include TX/RX switches to switch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. FEM circuitry 2208 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of FEM circuitry 2208 may include an LNA to amplify the received RF signal and provide the amplified received RF signal as an output (e.g., to RF circuitry 2206). The transmit signal path of FEM circuitry 2208 may include a Power Amplifier (PA) for amplifying an input RF signal (e.g., provided by RF circuitry 2206), and one or more filters for generating RF signals for subsequent transmission by one or more antenna elements of antenna array 2211.

Antenna array 2211 includes one or more antenna elements, each configured to convert electrical signals into radio waves to travel through the air and convert received radio waves into electrical signals. For example, digital baseband signals provided by baseband circuitry 2210 are converted to analog RF signals (e.g., modulation waveforms) that are to be amplified and transmitted via antenna elements of antenna array 2211, which includes one or more antenna elements (not shown). The antenna elements may be omnidirectional, directional, or a combination thereof. The antenna elements may form a variety of arrangements as is known and/or discussed herein. Antenna array 2211 may include microstrip antennas or printed antennas fabricated on the surface of one or more printed circuit boards. The antenna array 2211 may be formed as various shapes of metal foil patches (e.g., patch antennas) and may be coupled with the RF circuitry 2206 and/or the FEM circuitry 2208 using metal transmission lines or the like.

The processor of the application circuitry 2005/2105 and the processor of the baseband circuitry 2210 may be used to execute elements of one or more instances of a protocol stack. For example, the processor of baseband circuitry 2210 may be used, alone or in combination, to perform layer 3, layer 2, or layer 1 functions, while the processor of application circuitry 2005/2105 may utilize data (e.g., packet data) received from these layers and further perform layer 4 functions (e.g., TCP layer and UDP layer). As mentioned herein, layer 3 may include an RRC layer, as will be described in further detail below. As mentioned herein, layer 2 may include a MAC layer, an RLC layer, and a PDCP layer, which will be described in further detail below. As mentioned herein, layer 1 may comprise the PHY layer of the UE/RAN node, as will be described in further detail below.

Fig. 23 illustrates various protocol functions that may be implemented in a wireless communication device, according to some embodiments. In particular, fig. 23 includes an arrangement 2300 that illustrates the interconnections between the various protocol layers/entities. The following description of fig. 23 is provided for various protocol layers/entities operating in conjunction with the 5G/NR system standard and the LTE system standard, although some or all aspects of fig. 23 may also be applicable to other wireless communication network systems.

The protocol layers of arrangement 2300 may include one or more of PHY 2310, MAC 2320, RLC 2330, PDCP 2340, SDAP 2347, RRC 2355, and NAS layer 2357, among other higher layer functions not shown. These protocol layers may include one or more service access points capable of providing communication between two or more protocol layers (e.g., items 2359, 2356, 2350, 2349, 2345, 2335, 2325, and 2315 in fig. 23).

PHY 2310 may transmit and receive physical layer signals 2305, which may be received from or transmitted to one or more other communication devices. Physical layer signal 2305 may include one or more physical channels, such as those discussed herein. PHY 2310 may also perform link adaptive or Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC), power control, cell search (e.g., for initial synchronization and handover purposes), and other measurements used by higher layers, such as RRC 2355. The PHY 2310 may further perform error detection on transport channels, Forward Error Correction (FEC) encoding/decoding of transport channels, modulation/demodulation of physical channels, interleaving, rate matching, mapping to physical channels, and MIMO antenna processing. In an embodiment, an instance of PHY 2310 may process and provide an indication to a request from an instance of MAC 2320 via one or more PHY-SAPs 2315. According to some embodiments, the requests and indications transmitted via the PHY-SAP 2315 may include one or more transport channels.

An instance of MAC 2320 may process and provide an indication to a request from an instance of RLC 2330 via one or more MAC-SAPs 2325. These requests and indications transmitted via the MAC-SAP 2325 may include one or more logical channels. MAC 2320 may perform mapping between logical channels and transport channels, multiplexing MAC SDUs from one or more logical channels onto TBs to be delivered to PHY 2310 via transport channels, demultiplexing MAC SDUs from TBs delivered from PHY 2310 via transport channels onto one or more logical channels, multiplexing MAC SDUs onto TBs, scheduling information reporting, error correction by HARQ, and logical channel prioritization.

An instance of RLC 2330 may process and provide an indication to a request from an instance of PDCP 2340 via one or more radio link control service access points (RLC-SAPs) 2335. These requests and indications transmitted via the RLC-SAP 2335 may include one or more RLC channels. RLC 2330 may operate in a variety of operating modes including: transparent Mode (TM), Unacknowledged Mode (UM), and Acknowledged Mode (AM). RLC 2330 may perform transmission of upper layer Protocol Data Units (PDUs), error correction by automatic repeat request (ARQ) for AM data transmission, and concatenation, segmentation, and reassembly of RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transmission. RLC 2330 may also perform re-segmentation of RLC data PDUs for AM data transmission, re-ordering RLC data PDUs for UM and AM data transmission, detect duplicate data for UM and AM data transmission, discard RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transmission, detect protocol errors for AM data transmission, and perform RLC re-establishment.

An instance of PDCP 2340 may process and provide indications to requests from an instance of RRC 2355 and/or an instance of SDAP 2347 via one or more packet data convergence protocol service access points (PDCP-SAPs) 2345. These requests and indications communicated via the PDCP-SAP 2345 may include one or more radio bearers. PDCP 2340 may perform header compression and decompression of IP data, maintain PDCP Sequence Numbers (SNs), perform in-order delivery of upper layer PDUs when lower layers are reestablished, eliminate duplication of lower layer SDUs when lower layers are reestablished for radio bearers mapped on RLC AM, cipher and decipher control plane data, perform integrity protection and integrity verification on control plane data, control timer-based data discard, and perform security operations (e.g., ciphering, deciphering, integrity protection, integrity verification, etc.).

An instance of the SDAP 2347 may process and provide indications to one or more higher layer protocol entities via one or more SDAP-SAPs 2349. These requests and indications communicated via the SDAP-SAP 2349 may include one or more QoS flows. The SDAP 2347 may map QoS flows to DRBs and vice versa, and may also label QFIs in DL packets and UL packets. A single SDAP entity 2347 may be configured for separate PDU sessions. In the UL direction, the NG-RAN 1710 can control the mapping of QoS flows to DRBs in two different ways (reflective mapping or explicit mapping). For reflective mapping, the SDAP 2347 of the UE 1701 may monitor the QFI of the DL packets of each DRB and may apply the same mapping for packets flowing in the UL direction. For a DRB, the SDAP 2347 of the UE 1701 may map UL packets belonging to a QoS flow corresponding to the QoS flow ID and PDU session observed in the DL packets of the DRB. To implement the reflective mapping, NG-RAN 1910 may tag the DL packet with a QoS flow ID over the Uu interface. Explicit mapping may involve the RRC 2355 configuring the SDAP 2347 with explicit mapping rules for QoS flows to DRBs, which may be stored and followed by the SDAP 2347. In an embodiment, SDAP 2347 may be used only in NR implementations, and may not be used in LTE implementations.

RRC 2355 may configure aspects of one or more protocol layers, which may include one or more instances of PHY 2310, MAC 2320, RLC 2330, PDCP 2340, and SDAP 2347, via one or more management service access points (M-SAPs). In an embodiment, an instance of RRC 2355 may process and provide an indication to one or more NAS entities 2357 via one or more RRC-SAP 2356. The primary services and functions of RRC 2355 may include broadcasting of system information (e.g., included in MIB or SIB related to NAS), broadcasting of system information related to Access Stratum (AS), paging, establishment, maintenance and release of RRC connections between UE 1701 and RAN 1710 (e.g., RRC connection paging, RRC connection establishment, RRC connection modification and RRC connection release), establishment, configuration, maintenance and release of point-to-point radio bearers, security functions including key management, inter-RAT mobility, and measurement configuration for UE measurement reporting. These MIBs and SIBs may include one or more IEs, each of which may include a separate data field or data structure.

NAS 2357 may form the highest level of the control plane between UE 1701 and AMF 1921. NAS 2357 may support mobility and session management procedures for UE 1701 to establish and maintain an IP connection between UE 1701 and a P-GW in an LTE system.

According to various embodiments, one or more protocol entities of arrangement 2300 may be implemented in UE 1701, RAN node 1711, AMF 1921 in NR implementations, or MME 1821 in LTE implementations, UPF 1902 in NR implementations, or S-GW 1822 and P-GW 1823 in LTE implementations, etc., for a control plane or user plane communication protocol stack between the aforementioned devices. In such embodiments, one or more protocol entities that may be implemented in one or more of UE 1701, gNB 1711, AMF 1921, etc., may communicate with respective peer protocol entities that may be implemented in or on another device (such communications are performed using services of respective lower layer protocol entities). In some embodiments, the gNB-CU of gNB 1711 may host RRC 2355, SDAP 2347, and PDCP 2340 of the gNB that control operation of one or more gNB-DUs, and the gNB-DUs of gNB 1711 may each host RLC 2330, MAC 2320, and PHY 2310 of gNB 1711.

In a first example, the control plane protocol stack may include, in order from the highest layer to the lowest layer, NAS 2357, RRC 2355, PDCP 2340, RLC 2330, MAC 2320 and PHY 2310. In this example, an upper layer 2360 may be built on top of NAS 2357, which includes IP layer 2361, SCTP 2362, and application layer signaling protocol (AP) 2363.

In NR implementations, AP 2363 may be a NG application protocol layer (NGAP or NG-AP)2363 for a NG interface 1713 defined between NG-RAN nodes 1711 and AMFs 1921, or AP 2363 may be a Xn application protocol layer (XnAP or Xn-AP)2363 for a Xn interface 1712 defined between two or more RAN nodes 1711.

NG-AP 2363 may support the functionality of NG interface 1713 and may include a primary program (EP). The NG-AP EP may be an interaction unit between NG-RAN node 1711 and AMF 1921. The NG-AP 2363 service may include two groups: UE-associated services (e.g., services related to UE 1701) and non-UE associated services (e.g., services related to the entire NG interface instance between NG-RAN node 1711 and AMF 1921). These services may include functions including, but not limited to: a paging function for sending a paging request to a NG-RAN node 1711 involved in a specific paging area; a UE context management function for allowing AMF 1921 to establish, modify and/or release UE contexts in AMF 1921 and NG-RAN node 1711; mobility function for UE 1701 in ECM-CONNECTED mode for intra-system HO to support intra-NG-RAN mobility and inter-system HO to support mobility from/to EPS system; NAS signaling transport function for transporting or rerouting NAS messages between UE 1701 and AMF 1921; NAS node selection function for determining an association between AMF 1921 and UE 1701; the NG interface management function is used for setting the NG interface and monitoring errors through the NG interface; a warning message sending function for providing a means of transmitting a warning message or canceling an ongoing warning message broadcast via the NG interface; a configuration transmission function for requesting and transmitting RAN configuration information (e.g., SON information, Performance Measurement (PM) data, etc.) between the two RAN nodes 1711 via the CN 1720; and/or other similar functions.

XnAP 2363 may support the functionality of Xn interface 1712 and may include XnAP basic mobility procedures and XnAP global procedures. The XnAP basic mobility procedures may include procedures for handling UE mobility within the NG RAN 1711 (or E-UTRAN 1810), such as handover preparation and cancellation procedures, SN state transfer procedures, UE context retrieval and UE context release procedures, RAN paging procedures, dual connectivity related procedures, and so forth. The XnAP global procedure may include procedures unrelated to the particular UE 1701, such as an Xn interface setup and reset procedure, an NG-RAN update procedure, a cell activation procedure, and the like.

In an LTE implementation, AP 2363 may be an S1 application protocol layer (S1-AP)2363 for an S1 interface 1713 defined between E-UTRAN node 1711 and an MME, or AP 2363 may be an X2 application protocol layer (X2AP or X2-AP)2363 for an X2 interface 1712 defined between two or more E-UTRAN nodes 1711.

The S1 application protocol layer (S1-AP)2363 may support the functionality of the S1 interface, and similar to the NG-AP previously discussed, the S1-AP may include the S1-AP EP. The S1-AP EP may be an interworking unit between the E-UTRAN node 1711 and the MME 1821 within the LTE CN 1720. The S1-AP 2363 service may include two groups: UE-associated services and non-UE-associated services. The functions performed by these services include, but are not limited to: E-UTRAN radio Access bearer (E-RAB) management, UE capability indication, mobility, NAS signaling transport, RAN Information Management (RIM), and configuration transport.

The X2AP 2363 may support the functionality of the X2 interface 1712 and may include X2AP basic mobility procedures and X2AP global procedures. The X2AP basic mobility procedures may include procedures for handling UE mobility within the E-UTRAN 1720, such as handover preparation and cancellation procedures, SN status transmission procedures, UE context retrieval and UE context release procedures, RAN paging procedures, dual connectivity related procedures, and so forth. The X2AP global procedure may include procedures unrelated to the particular UE 1701, such as an X2 interface set and reset procedure, a load indication procedure, an error indication procedure, a cell activation procedure, and the like.

This SCTP layer (alternatively referred to as the SCTP/IP layer) 2362 may provide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages (e.g., NGAP or XnAP messages in NR implementations, or S1-AP or X2AP messages in LTE implementations). SCTP 2362 may ensure reliable delivery of signaling messages between RAN node 1711 and AMF 1921/MME 1821 based in part on IP protocols supported by IP 2361. An internet protocol layer (IP)2361 may be used to perform packet addressing and routing functions. In some implementations, the IP layer 2361 may use point-to-point transmission to deliver and transmit PDUs. In this regard, the RAN node 1711 may include L2 and L1 layer communication links (e.g., wired or wireless) in communication with the MME/AMF to exchange information.

In a second example, the user plane protocol stack may include, in order from the highest layer to the lowest layer, SDAP 2347, PDCP 2340, RLC 2330, MAC 2320 and PHY 2310. The user plane protocol stack may be used for communication between the UE 1701 in NR implementations, the RAN node 1711 and the UPF 1902, or between the S-GW 1822 and the P-GW 1823 in LTE implementations. In this example, upper layers 2351 may be built on top of the SDAP 2347, and may include a User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and IP security layer (UDP/IP)2352, a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) tunneling protocol (GTP-U)2353 for the user plane layer, and a user plane PDU layer (UP PDU) 2363.

Transport network layer 2354 (also referred to as the "transport layer") may be built on top of the IP transport, and GTP-U2353 may be used on top of UDP/IP layer 2352 (including UDP layer and IP layer) to carry user plane PDUs (UP-PDUs). The IP layer (also referred to as the "internet layer") may be used to perform packet addressing and routing functions. The IP layer may assign IP addresses to user data packets in any of the IPv4, IPv6, or PPP formats, for example.

GTP-U2353 may be used to carry user data within the GPRS core network and between the radio access network and the core network. For example, the transmitted user data may be packets in any of IPv4, IPv6, or PPP formats. UDP/IP 2352 may provide a checksum for data integrity, port numbers to address different functions at the source and destination, and encryption and authentication of selected data streams. The RAN node 1711 and the S-GW 1822 may utilize the S1-U interface to exchange user-plane data via a protocol stack including an L1 layer (e.g., PHY 2310), an L2 layer (e.g., MAC 2320, RLC 2330, PDCP 2340, and/or SDAP 2347), a UDP/IP layer 2352, and a GTP-U2353. The S-GW 1822 and the P-GW 1823 may exchange user-plane data via a protocol stack including an L1 layer, an L2 layer, a UDP/IP layer 2352, and a GTP-U2353 using an S5/S8a interface. As previously discussed, the NAS protocol may support mobility and session management procedures for the UE 1701 to establish and maintain an IP connection between the UE 1701 and the P-GW 1823.

Further, although not shown in fig. 23, an application layer may be present above the AP 2363 and/or the transport network layer 2354. The application layer may be a layer in which a user of UE 1701, RAN node 1711, or other network element interacts with a software application executed by, for example, application circuitry 2005 or application circuitry 2105, respectively. The application layer may also provide one or more interfaces for software applications to interact with the UE 1701 or a communication system of the RAN node 1711, such as the baseband circuitry 2210. In some implementations, the IP layer and/or the application layer can provide the same or similar functionality as layers 5 through 7 or portions thereof of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model (e.g., OSI layer 7 — the application layer, OSI layer 6 — the presentation layer, and OSI layer 5 — the session layer).

Fig. 24 is a block diagram illustrating components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable medium or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and performing any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, according to some example embodiments; in particular, fig. 24 shows a schematic diagram of hardware resources 2400, including one or more processors (or processor cores) 2410, one or more memory/storage devices 2420, and one or more communication resources 2430, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 2440. For embodiments in which node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, hypervisor 2402 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/subslices to utilize hardware resources 2400.

Processor 2410 may include, for example, processor 2412 and processor 2414. The processor 2410 may be, for example, a Central Processing Unit (CPU), a Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) processor, a Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC) processor, a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), a DSP such as a baseband processor, an ASIC, an FPGA, a Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC), another processor (including those discussed herein), or any suitable combination thereof.

The memory/storage 2420 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory/storage 2420 may include, but is not limited to, any type of volatile or non-volatile memory, such as Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, solid state storage, and the like.

Communication resources 2430 can include interconnection or network interface components or other suitable devices to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 2404 or one or more databases 2406 via a network 2408. For example, communication resource 2430 can include a wired communication component (e.g., for coupling via USB), a cellular communication component, an NFC component, a wireless communication component, and/or a wireless communication component, (orLow power consumption) component, Components and other communication components.

The instructions 2450 may include software, programs, applications, applets, applications, or other executable code for causing at least any one of the processors 2410 to perform any one or more of the methods discussed herein. The instructions 2450 may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processor 2410 (e.g., within a cache memory of the processor), the memory/storage 2420, or any suitable combination thereof. Further, any portion of the instructions 2450 may be transmitted to the hardware resource 2400 from any combination of the peripherals 2404 or the database 2406. Thus, the memory of the processor 2410, memory/storage 2420, peripherals 2404, and database 2406 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

For one or more embodiments, at least one of the components illustrated in one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to perform one or more operations, techniques, processes, and/or methods described in the example section below. For example, the baseband circuitry described above in connection with one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to operate in accordance with one or more of the following embodiments. As another example, circuitry associated with a UE, base station, network element, etc., as described above in connection with one or more of the preceding figures, can be configured to operate in accordance with one or more of the embodiments illustrated below in the embodiments section.

It is well known that the use of personally identifiable information should comply with privacy policies and practices that are recognized as meeting or exceeding industry or government requirements for maintaining user privacy. In particular, personally identifiable information data should be managed and processed to minimize the risk of inadvertent or unauthorized access or use, and the nature of authorized use should be explicitly stated to the user.

Embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented in any of various forms. For example, some embodiments may be implemented as a computer-implemented method, a computer-readable memory medium, or a computer system. Other embodiments may be implemented using one or more custom designed hardware devices, such as ASICs. Other embodiments may be implemented using one or more programmable hardware elements, such as FPGAs.

In some embodiments, a non-transitory computer-readable memory medium may be configured such that it stores program instructions and/or data, wherein the program instructions, if executed by a computer system, cause the computer system to perform a method, e.g., any of the method embodiments described herein, or any combination of the method embodiments described herein, or any subset of any of the method embodiments described herein, or any combination of such subsets.

In some embodiments, an apparatus (e.g., UE 106, BS 102, network element 600) may be configured to include a processor (or a set of processors) and a memory medium, wherein the memory medium stores program instructions, wherein the processor is configured to read and execute the program instructions from the memory medium, wherein the program instructions are executable to implement any of the various method embodiments described herein (or any combination of the method embodiments described herein, or any subset of any of the method embodiments described herein, or any combination of such subsets). The apparatus may be embodied in any of various forms.

By interpreting each message/signal X received by a User Equipment (UE) in the downlink as a message/signal X transmitted by a base station, and interpreting each message/signal Y transmitted by the UE in the uplink as a message/signal Y received by the base station, any of the methods for operating a UE described herein may form the basis for a corresponding method for operating a base station.

Although the above embodiments have been described in considerable detail, numerous variations and modifications will become apparent to those skilled in the art once the above disclosure is fully appreciated. It is intended that the following claims be interpreted to embrace all such variations and modifications.