Title of Invention: Electronic equipment, methods, devices and storage media used in wireless communication systems
[0001]
Cross references to related applications
[0002]
This disclosure claims the priority of Chinese patent application No. 201711469227.0 filed on December 29, 2017, and the content of the above-mentioned Chinese patent application is quoted here in full as a part of this disclosure.
Technical field
[0003]
The present disclosure generally relates to wireless communication systems, and specifically relates to techniques for beam management in wireless communication systems.
Background technique
[0004]
With the development and wide application of mobile Internet technology, wireless communication has unprecedentedly met people's voice and data communication needs. With the increase in frequency bands used (such as 26GHz, 60GHz or higher frequency bands), wireless channels will inevitably endure greater path loss and atmospheric absorption loss than low frequency bands (such as 2GHz). In order to provide higher communication quality and capacity, wireless communication systems adopt various technologies at different levels.
[0005]
In recent years, Massive Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) technology and millimeter wave (Millimeter Wave) technology are considered to be part of the key technologies of 5G in the future, which has attracted widespread attention from academia and industry. The millimeter wave frequency band has a large amount of available spectrum resources, which can meet the increasing business traffic demand of mobile communications. In addition, due to the short wavelength of millimeter waves, according to antenna theory, the antenna size of millimeter wave systems is also small, enabling hundreds or even thousands of antennas to be placed in a small space, which is more conducive to large-scale antenna technology in real systems. In the application.
[0006]
In addition, in large-scale antenna technology, beam forming technology can effectively compensate for the disadvantage of excessive millimeter wave channel path fading, which makes it possible for millimeter wave technology to be applied to mobile communications. Beamforming can provide beamforming gain to compensate for the loss of wireless signals by increasing the directivity of antenna transmission and/or reception. For this reason, 3GPP has introduced the concept of beam management (Beam Management) in the formulation of 5G standards, and one of the important processes is beam scanning (Beam Sweeping). In the beam scanning technology, a beam scanning (Beam Sweeping) process is used to find out the matched transmitting beam and receiving beam between the base station and the terminal device, thereby establishing a beam pair link (BPL) between the base station and the terminal device.
[0007]
In the application of beamforming technology, as more and more beams are available for scanning, beam management will become more and more cumbersome.
[0008]
Summary of the invention
[0009]
In response to the above situation, the present disclosure provides electronic equipment, methods, devices, and storage media for wireless communication systems.
[0010]
One aspect of the present disclosure relates to electronic equipment used at the receiver side in a wireless communication system. According to an embodiment, the electronic device may include a processing circuit. The processing circuit may be configured to estimate the transmitter to the second beam corresponding to the reference signal transmitted via at least one second beam included in the coverage of the first beam from the transmitter end of the wireless communication system. The channel path parameters of the receiver. Wherein, a specific second beam of the at least one second beam may be selected based on the estimated channel path parameter, the estimated channel path parameter corresponding to the specific second beam and the channel corresponding to the first beam Path parameters match.
[0011]
Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to electronic equipment used at the transmitter side of a wireless communication system. According to an embodiment, the electronic device may include a processing circuit. The processing circuit may be configured to transmit the reference signal to the receiver end of the wireless communication system via at least one second beam included in the coverage of the first beam. Wherein, a specific second beam of the at least one second beam may be selected based on the estimated channel path parameter from the transmitter to the receiver corresponding to the second beam, which corresponds to the specific second beam The estimated channel path parameter matches the channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam.
[0012]
Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to an electronic device used at the receiver side of a wireless communication system. According to an embodiment, the electronic device may include a processing circuit. The processing circuit may be configured to estimate the receiving channel path parameter based on the reference signal received from the transmitter of the wireless communication system using the first beam as the receiving beam and transmitted with the second beam as the transmitting beam; and The beam is used as a transmission beam to transmit a reference signal to the transmitter end, wherein the transmitter end uses a second beam as a reception beam to receive the reference signal, so that the transmission channel path parameters can be estimated. Wherein, the beam reciprocity between the transmitter end and the receiver end may be determined based on the receiving channel path parameter and the transmitting channel path parameter.
[0013]
Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to electronic equipment used at the transmitter side of a wireless communication system. According to an embodiment, the electronic device may include a processing circuit. The processing circuit may be configured to use the second beam as a transmission beam to transmit the reference signal to the receiver end of the wireless communication system, wherein the receiver end uses the first beam as the reception beam to receive the reference signal, so that the transmission channel The path parameters can be estimated; based on the reference signal received from the receiver end of the wireless communication system using the second beam as the receiving beam and transmitted using the first beam as the transmitting beam, the receiving channel path parameters are estimated. Wherein, the beam reciprocity between the transmitter end and the receiver end may be determined based on the receiving channel path parameter and the transmitting channel path parameter.
[0014]
Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to electronic equipment used on the receiver side of a wireless communication system. According to an embodiment, the electronic device may include a processing circuit. The processing circuit may be configured to, for each of the multiple transmission beams used to transmit the reference signal at the transmitter end of the wireless communication system, estimate the transmission corresponding to the transmission beam based on the reference signal transmitted via the transmission beam. The amplitude of the path gain in the time domain of the channel path from the machine to the receiver. Wherein, a specific transmission beam among the multiple transmission beams may be determined based on the estimated path gain amplitude in the time domain.
[0015]
Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to electronic equipment used at the transmitter side of a wireless communication system. According to an embodiment, the electronic device may include a processing circuit. The processing circuit may be configured to transmit the reference signal to the receiver end of the wireless communication system via each of a plurality of transmit beams. Wherein, for each of the multiple transmit beams, the path in the time domain of the channel path from the transmitter to the receiver corresponding to the transmit beam can be estimated based on the reference signal transmitted via the transmit beam Gain amplitude. Wherein, a specific transmission beam of the plurality of transmission beams is determined based on the estimated path gain amplitude in the time domain.
[0016]
Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to a method for the receiver side of a wireless communication system. According to some embodiments, the method includes estimating the transmitter corresponding to the second beam based on the reference signal from the transmitter of the wireless communication system transmitted via at least one second beam included in the coverage of the first beam Channel path parameters to the receiver. Wherein, a specific second beam of the at least one second beam may be selected based on the estimated channel path parameter, the estimated channel path parameter corresponding to the specific second beam and the channel corresponding to the first beam Path parameters match.
[0017]
Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to a method for a transmitter side of a wireless communication system. According to some embodiments, the method may include transmitting a reference signal to the receiver end of the wireless communication system via at least one second beam included in the coverage of the first beam. Wherein, a specific second beam of the at least one second beam may be selected based on the estimated channel path parameter from the transmitter to the receiver corresponding to the second beam, which corresponds to the specific second beam The estimated channel path parameter matches the channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam.
[0018]
Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to a method for the receiver side of a wireless communication system. According to some embodiments, the method may include estimating the receiving channel path parameter based on the reference signal transmitted using the second beam as the transmitting beam from the transmitter end of the wireless communication system received by using the first beam as the receiving beam; and A beam is used as a transmitting beam to transmit a reference signal to the transmitter. Wherein, the transmitter end uses the second beam as a receiving beam to receive the reference signal, so that the transmission channel path parameters can be estimated. Wherein, the beam reciprocity between the transmitter end and the receiver end may be determined based on the receiving channel path parameter and the transmitting channel path parameter.
[0019]
Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to a method for a transmitter side of a wireless communication system. According to some embodiments, the method may include using the second beam as a transmitting beam to transmit a reference signal to a receiver end of the wireless communication system, wherein the receiver end uses the first beam as a receiving beam to receive the reference signal such that The transmission channel path parameters can be estimated; based on the reference signal transmitted with the first beam as the transmission beam from the receiver end of the wireless communication system received by the second beam as the reception beam, the reception channel path parameters are estimated. Wherein, the beam reciprocity between the transmitter end and the receiver end may be determined based on the receiving channel path parameter and the transmitting channel path parameter.
[0020]
Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to a method for the receiver side of a wireless communication system. According to some embodiments, the method may include: for each of a plurality of transmission beams used to transmit a reference signal at the transmitter end of the wireless communication system, estimating the transmission beam corresponding to the transmission beam based on the reference signal transmitted via the transmission beam The path gain amplitude in the time domain of the channel path from the transmitter to the receiver. Wherein, a specific transmission beam among the multiple transmission beams may be determined based on the estimated path gain amplitude in the time domain.
[0021]
Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to a method for a transmitter side of a wireless communication system. According to some embodiments, the method may include transmitting the reference signal to the receiver end of the wireless communication system via each of the plurality of transmit beams. Wherein, for each of the multiple transmit beams, the path in the time domain of the channel path from the transmitter to the receiver corresponding to the transmit beam can be estimated based on the reference signal transmitted via the transmit beam Gain amplitude. Wherein, a specific transmission beam among the multiple transmission beams may be determined based on the estimated path gain amplitude in the time domain.
[0022]
Yet another aspect of the present disclosure relates to a computer-readable storage medium storing one or more instructions. In some embodiments, the one or more instructions may, when executed by one or more processors of the electronic device, cause the electronic device to execute the method according to various embodiments of the present disclosure.
[0023]
Yet another aspect of the present disclosure relates to various devices, including components or units for performing operations of various methods according to embodiments of the present disclosure.
[0024]
The above summary is provided to summarize some exemplary embodiments to provide a basic understanding of various aspects of the subject matter described herein. Therefore, the above features are only examples and should not be construed as narrowing 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 specific embodiments described in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
Description of the drawings
[0025]
A better understanding of the present disclosure can be obtained when the following detailed description of the embodiments is considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. The same or similar reference numerals are used in the various drawings to indicate the same or similar components. The drawings together with the following detailed description are included in the specification and form a part of the specification, and are used to illustrate embodiments of the present disclosure and explain the principles and advantages of the present disclosure. among them:
[0026]
Figure 1A schematically shows the conceptual structure of a base station.
[0027]
Fig. 1B schematically shows the conceptual structure of the user equipment.
[0028]
Figure 2 schematically illustrates an exemplary beamforming operation.
[0029]
Fig. 3 schematically shows an example of a hierarchical beam scanning operation between a base station and a user equipment.
[0030]
Figure 4 is a schematic diagram of channel sparsity.
[0031]
Figure 5 shows an exemplary communication system.
[0032]
FIG. 6A shows an exemplary electronic device used on the receiver side according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
[0033]
FIG. 6B shows an exemplary electronic device used at the transmitter end according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
[0034]
Fig. 7 schematically shows a beam management process according to the first embodiment of the present disclosure.
[0035]
Figure 8 is a schematic diagram of the transceiver structure of a millimeter wave large-scale multiple input multiple output antenna system.
[0036]
Fig. 9 is a schematic diagram of the uniform distribution of the reference signal.
[0037]
Fig. 10 shows an example of estimation of path gain and delay.
[0038]
Figure 11 is a schematic diagram of a sparse reference signal in the frequency domain.
[0039]
Fig. 12 is a schematic diagram of a matching operation applying a gain increase criterion.
[0040]
Fig. 13 is a schematic diagram of a matching operation applying a delay similarity criterion.
[0041]
Fig. 14 is a schematic diagram of beam management operations according to the present embodiment.
[0042]
Figure 15 is a signaling flow chart of beam selection at the terminal equipment side in downlink communication.
[0043]
Fig. 16 is a schematic diagram of a terminal device feeding back beam termination information.
[0044]
Figure 17 is a flow chart of signaling for beam selection at the base station in downlink communication.
[0045]
Figure 18 is a signaling flow chart of beam selection in uplink communication.
[0046]
Fig. 19 is a simulation result of obtaining the optimal beam probability according to the technical solution of the embodiment.
[0047]
Fig. 20 is a simulation result of the reachability probability of the technical solution according to the embodiment.
[0048]
Fig. 21 is a simulation result of beam scanning overhead according to the technical solution of the embodiment.
[0049]
22A and 22B are respectively an electronic device for the receiver side and an electronic device for the transmitter side according to the second embodiment.
[0050]
Figure 23 is a schematic diagram of beam reciprocity determination.
[0051]
Figure 24 is a flow chart of signaling for determining beam reciprocity.
[0052]
FIG. 25 is a block diagram of an example structure of a personal computer as an information processing device that can be adopted in an embodiment of the present disclosure;
[0053]
FIG. 26 is a block diagram showing a first example of a schematic configuration of a gNB to which the technology of the present disclosure can be applied;
[0054]
FIG. 27 is a block diagram showing a second example of a schematic configuration of a gNB to which the technology of the present disclosure can be applied;
[0055]
FIG. 28 is a block diagram showing an example of a schematic configuration of a smart phone to which the technology of the present disclosure can be applied; and
[0056]
FIG. 29 is a block diagram showing an example of a schematic configuration of a car navigation device to which the technology of the present disclosure can be applied.
[0057]
Although the embodiments described in the present disclosure may be susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown as examples in the drawings and described in detail herein. However, it should be understood that the drawings and detailed description thereof are not intended to limit the embodiments to the specific forms disclosed, but on the contrary, the purpose is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the claims. Program.
detailed description
[0058]
The following describes representative applications of various aspects such as the device and method according to the present disclosure. The description of these examples is only for adding context and helping to understand the described embodiments. Therefore, it is clear to those skilled in the art that the embodiments described below can be implemented without some or all of the specific details. In other cases, well-known process steps have not been described in detail to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the described embodiments. Other applications are also possible, and the solution of the present disclosure is not limited to these examples.
[0059]
Typically, a wireless communication system includes at least a base station and user equipment (UE), and the base station provides communication services for one or more UEs.
[0060]
In the present disclosure, the term "base station" has the full breadth of its usual meaning, and includes at least a wireless communication station used as a wireless communication system or a part of a radio system to facilitate communication. As an example, the base station may be a 4G communication standard eNB, a 5G communication standard gNB, a remote radio head, a wireless access point, a drone control tower, or a communication device that performs similar functions. Hereinafter, application examples of the base station will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
[0061]
In the present disclosure, the term "user equipment" or "UE" has the full breadth of its usual meaning and includes at least terminal devices used as a wireless communication system or a part of a radio system to facilitate communication. As an example, the UE may be a terminal device such as a mobile phone, a laptop computer, a tablet computer, an in-vehicle communication device, or an element thereof. The following chapters will describe the UE application examples in detail.
[0062]
In the present disclosure, the term "transmitter end"/"transmitting end" has the full breadth of its usual meaning, and generally indicates one end of a transmission signal stream in a communication system. Depending on the direction of signal flow in the communication system, such as uplink/downlink signal transmission, "transmitter end"/"transmitting end" can indicate the "base station" or "user equipment" end of the communication system. Similarly, the term "receiver terminal"/"receiver terminal" has the full breadth of its usual meaning, and accordingly can indicate the "user equipment" or "base station" side of the communication system.
[0063]
It should be noted that although the following descriptions of the embodiments of the present disclosure are mainly based on a communication system including a base station and a user equipment, these descriptions can be extended to the case of a communication system including a transmitter end and a receiver end accordingly. For example, depending on the direction of the signal flow in the communication system, the operation of the transmitter may correspond to the operation of the base station or the user equipment, and the operation of the receiver may correspond to the operation of the user equipment or the base station. It should be noted that the transmitter and receiver can be both user equipment. For example, in device-to-device (D2D), Internet of Vehicles (V2X) and other short-distance-based communications, both ends of the transmitter and receiver are user equipment. Correspondingly, the transmitter and the receiver can also be base stations. For example, in the wireless communication between a mobile base station and a fixed base station or a mobile base station and a mobile base station in a system including a moving base station, both ends of the transceiver are base stations.
[0064]
The base station and the UE may have multiple antennas supporting MIMO technology. The use of MIMO technology enables base stations and UEs to use the space domain to support spatial multiplexing, beamforming, and transmit diversity. Spatial multiplexing can be used to simultaneously transmit different data streams on the same frequency. These data streams can be sent to a single UE to increase the data rate (can be classified as SU-MIMO technology) or to multiple UEs to increase the total system capacity (can be classified as MU-MIMO technology). This is achieved by spatially precoding each data stream (that is, performing amplitude scaling and/or phase adjustment) and then transmitting each data stream on the downlink (DL) from the base station to the UE through multiple transmit antennas. A spatially precoded stream is achieved. The spatially precoded data stream arrives at one or more UEs with different spatial signatures, which enables each UE to receive the data stream via its multiple antennas and recover one or more data destined for the UE flow. On the uplink (UL) from the UE to the base station, each UE transmits a spatially precoded data stream through its multiple antennas, which enables the base station to receive the data stream through its antenna and identifies each spatially precoded data stream. The source of the pre-encoded data stream.
[0065]
In a wireless communication system, usually, at the transmitting end (e.g., base station end) and the receiving end (e.g., user equipment), each antenna is connected to a radio frequency link for transmission and reception. Generally speaking, in operation, at the transmitting end, the data stream to be transmitted is first subjected to baseband processing, and then converted into a radio frequency signal via the radio frequency link to be transmitted through the corresponding antenna, and the receiving end corresponds to the radio frequency link The received radio frequency signal is processed into a baseband signal, and then further baseband processing is performed to obtain the desired data stream.
[0066]
Generally, in baseband data processing, in order to facilitate multiple data streams to multiplex the same transmission resource and transmit via the radio frequency link and the corresponding antenna, the digital precoding architecture is mainly used, and the amplitude of the signal sent on each radio frequency link can be To reduce the interference between multiple data signals carried on the same transmission resource. Such processing before the data is transmitted via the radio frequency link and antenna can be referred to as baseband digital processing of the data at the transmitting end.
[0067]
For example, FIG. 1A schematically shows a conceptual structure of a base station in the prior art. As shown in FIG. 1A, under the digital precoding architecture, the base station is equipped with M antennas (M is an integer and M≥1), and each antenna is arranged with a corresponding radio frequency link. The digital precoder obtains K data streams (K is an integer and K≥1) under the control of the controller, and performs digital precoding on the K data streams (for example, the K data flows through the M×K Digital precoding matrix B). The encoded data is sent to one or more users via radio frequency links and antennas.
[0068]
Correspondingly, the user terminal can have a variety of configurations, so as to perform corresponding baseband digital processing after receiving the encoded data through the radio frequency link to obtain a desired data stream.
[0069]
Figure 1B shows a user terminal configured with multiple antennas. As shown in FIG. 1B, the user end is configured with N antennas (N is an integer and N≥1). Each antenna transmits the received data to the digital precoder through the corresponding radio frequency link. Under the control of the controller, the digital precoder uses, for example, a digital precoding matrix W (Ku is an integer and Ku≧1) with a size of Ku×N to digitally precode the received data to obtain a single channel (Ku= 1 o'clock) or multiple data (Ku>1 o'clock).
[0070]
Further, in wireless communication systems, especially high-frequency communication systems such as millimeter-wave communication systems, and 5G NR, both the base station and the user end can use directional beams to overcome large path attenuation in the frequency band above 6 GHz, and to reduce hardware Complexity, beams are usually generated by analog beamforming. In the realization of mode beamforming, the radio frequency link is connected to the antenna unit through a phase shifter, and a beam is generated by adjusting the phase of the phase shifter. In order to improve the signal-to-noise ratio at the receiving end, the beam direction needs to be matched with the channel direction, that is, the base station beam is aligned with the channel launch angle (Angle of Departure, AoD), and the user end beam is aligned with the channel angle of arrival (Angle of Arrival, AoA).
[0071]
Due to the limited number of radio frequency links, the prior art uses beam scanning to determine the beams at the transmitting and receiving ends, that is, the transmitting and receiving ends pre-store a beamforming codebook, and the most matching beam pair at the transmitting and receiving ends is selected from the codebook through beam scanning. This is often referred to as analog beamforming training. Analog beamforming training refers to the process of optimizing the radio configuration information of the base station and user equipment (for example, the configuration value of the phase shifter related to the base station and the user equipment, also known as the weight vector for the phase shifter). The function is to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of user equipment. Take the following uplink as an example. The base station forms a directional transmission beam by configuring the values ​​of multiple phase shifters connected to its multiple antennas, and the user equipment configures the values ​​of multiple phase shifters connected to its multiple antennas. A directional receiving beam is formed, and the sending beam of the base station and the receiving beam of the user equipment constitute a set of beam pairs in the downlink. The process of downlink beamforming training is the process of finding a set of optimal beam pairs composed of the optimal base station transmitting beam and the optimal user equipment receiving beam. Similarly, in the uplink, the receiving beam of the base station and the transmitting beam of the user equipment also constitute a set of beam pairs.
[0072]
The beam scanning process in the wireless communication system is briefly introduced below in conjunction with FIG. 2. The right arrow in FIG. 2 represents the downlink direction from the base station 100 to the terminal device 104, and the left arrow represents the uplink direction from the terminal device 104 to the base station 100. As shown in FIG. 2, the base station 100 includes n t_DL downlink transmit beams (n t_DL is a natural number greater than or equal to 1, and is illustrated as n t_DL = 9 in FIG. 2 ), and the terminal device 104 includes n r_DL downlink receive beams (n r_DL is A natural number greater than or equal to 1, as illustrated in Fig. 2 as n r_DL =5). In addition, in the wireless communication system shown in FIG. 2, the number of uplink receiving beams n r_UL and the coverage of each beam of the base station 100 are the same as those of the downlink transmitting beam, and the number of uplink transmitting beams n t_UL of the terminal device 104 and each The coverage of the beam is the same as the downlink receiving beam. It should be understood that, according to system requirements and settings, the coverage and number of the uplink receiving beam and the downlink transmitting beam of the base station may be different, and the same is true for the terminal equipment.
[0073]
2, the downlink beam scanning process, the base station 100 n t_DL each downlink transmit beams n downlink transmit beam 102 transmits to the terminal device 104 R DL downlink reference signal, the terminal device 104 through n R DL downlink The receiving beams respectively receive the n r_DL downlink reference signals. In this way, the n t_DL downlink transmit beams of the base station 100 sequentially send n t_DL × n r_DL downlink reference signals to the terminal device 104, and each downlink receive beam 106 of the terminal device 104 receives n t_DL downlink reference signals, that is, the terminal The n r_DL downlink receiving beams of the device 104 receive a total of n t_DL ×n r_DL downlink reference signals from the base station 100 . The terminal device 104 measures the n t_DL × n r_DL downlink reference signals (for example, measures the received signal power of the downlink reference signal (for example, RSRP)), so as to determine the downlink transmit beam and the terminal of the base station 100 when the measurement result is good or best. The downlink receiving beam of the device 104 is determined to be a downlink-matching transmit-receive beam pair, and a downlink beam pair link (hereinafter referred to as BPL) is established.
[0074]
In uplink beam scanning process, the downlink beam scanning Similarly, n is the terminal device 104 t_UL uplink transmit beams each uplink transmission beam 106 transmits to the base station 100 n- r_UL uplink reference signal, the base station 100 through the n- r_UL upstream The receiving beams respectively receive the n r_UL uplink reference signals. In this way, the n t_UL uplink transmit beams of the terminal device 104 sequentially send n t_UL × n r_UL uplink reference signals to the base station 100, and each uplink receive beam 102 of the base station 100 receives n t_UL uplink reference signals, that is, the base station 100 The n r_UL uplink receiving beams in, receive a total of n r_UL × nt_UL uplink reference signals from the terminal device 104 . The base station 100 measures the n r_UL × n t_UL uplink reference signals (for example, measuring the received signal power of the uplink reference signal (for example, RSRP)), so as to compare the uplink transmission beam of the terminal device 104 with the base station when the measurement result is good or best. The uplink receiving beam of 100 is determined to be a matched transmitting and receiving beam pair on the uplink, and an uplink beam pair link is established.
[0075]
It should be understood that the coverage and quantity of the uplink receiving beam and the downlink transmitting beam of the base station may be different, and the coverage and quantity of the uplink transmitting beam and the downlink receiving beam of the terminal device may be different, and the above determination operation can still be performed similarly. For example, in the above description, both the transmitting end (base station) and the receiving end (terminal equipment) adopt beamforming technology, but in one implementation, the receiving end does not use receive beamforming but only has a full-width receive beam. Here, a full-width beam may refer to a beam in the case where beamforming is not used, that is, its beam width is not narrowed by beamforming processing. For example, the beam of an omnidirectional antenna can be considered a full-width beam.
[0076]
In addition, in the beam scanning method, a multi-level scanning method can also be used, which splits the beam training into multiple levels of beams. The transmitting end may be provided with graded transmitting beams, such as a first grade transmitting beam (also called a thick transmitting beam, a wide beam, etc.) and a second grade transmitting beam (also called a thin transmitting beam, a narrow beam, etc.). The beam width of the coarse transmit beam may be wider than that of the thin transmit beam, and one coarse transmit beam may cover several fine transmit beams, and the gain of the thin transmit beam may be larger than that of the coarse transmit beam.
[0077]
In the beam scanning operation, a wide beam may be scanned first to determine the coarse channel direction, and then narrow beam scanning may be used to determine the fine channel direction within the range of the determined coarse channel direction. For example, the transmitting end may first perform the first-level transmit beam scanning, and the receiving end may determine the first-level transmit beam matching it in a similar manner as described above. When the transmitting end performs beam scanning through the second-level transmit beam covered by the matched first-level transmit beam, the receiving end can similarly determine the second-level transmit beam that matches the second-level transmit beam.
[0078]
FIG. 3 shows an exemplary hierarchical beam scanning operation, in which a wide beam is used for initial access, and then a narrow beam scanning is performed. As shown in Figure 3. In the initial access stage, the optimal beam pair is determined as the base station wide beam 1 and the user end receiving beam 3. In the narrow beam scanning stage, the 4 narrow beams in the coverage of wide beam 1 are scanned to determine the optimal beam direction.
[0079]
At present, when performing narrow beam scanning, it is necessary to measure the reception quality of all candidate beams, and feed back the information of several beams for the base station to perform beam selection. This method has fixed overhead and delay for beam scanning, and faces higher overhead and delay when there are many candidate narrow beams.
[0080]
On the other hand, notice that the high-frequency electromagnetic wave signal has a sparse channel due to greater path attenuation and reflection attenuation, that is, the number of channel paths is small and the path delay is small. As the beam narrows, the number of channel paths and the path delay further decrease. And, the channel path under the narrow beam is a subset of the channel path under the wide beam. As shown in Figure 4, the channel has one direct path and two reflection paths. When a wide beam is used, all paths are within the coverage of the wide beam, so there are three paths with different delays in the time-domain impulse response of the baseband channel. When a narrow beam is used, since the narrow beam only covers the direct path and the indirect path -1, there are only two paths with different delays in the time-domain impulse response of the baseband channel. Also, notice that the delay of each of the direct path and the non-direct path 1 under the wide beam and the narrow beam should be basically the same, and the gain under the narrow beam is greater.
[0081]
Based on the above recognition, an improved fast beam management mechanism is proposed. The basic principle of the fast beam management mechanism is to match the channel path parameters under the wide beam with the channel path parameters under the narrow beams covered by the wide beam. If the matching conditions are met, the narrow beam can be determined as the optimal beam. Therefore, there is no need to scan the remaining candidate beams, and the beam scanning process can be terminated early.
[0082]
Therefore, the fast beam management mechanism proposed in the present disclosure can reduce the overhead and delay of narrow beam scanning, while the performance loss is small compared with the scheme of scanning all candidate beams.
[0083]
On the other hand, in wireless communication systems, it is generally believed that the following channel reciprocity can exist: when the uplink and downlink channels are within the relevant time and bandwidth, the same channel impulse response can be observed on the uplink and downlink channels. Response, CIR), at this time, it can be considered that the uplink and downlink channels are consistent, that is, there is channel reciprocity. Moreover, the inventor of the present disclosure recognizes that when there is channel reciprocity, there may be a certain correspondence between the radio frequency beams of the base station and the terminal device, that is, beam correspondence (sometimes also called beam reciprocity). Or beam consistency). For example, beam symmetry may include the beam symmetry of each of the base station and the terminal device, also known as the transmit and receive beam symmetry, which represents the strongest of the communication device (such as the base station or the terminal device) on one side of the communication link The receiving beam is the same as the strongest transmitting beam. As a result, the downlink transmission (reception) beam can be used to determine the uplink reception (transmission) beam, so that only beam scanning is performed in the uplink or downlink direction, which saves beam scanning overhead.
[0084]
In the prior art, it is usually assumed that there is static beam reciprocity, that is, the beam reciprocity is determined according to the frequency difference between the uplink and downlink carriers and the measurement results during cell deployment. However, its disadvantage is that the same beam reciprocity state is assumed for different channel states of different users, and this will inevitably lead to inaccurate beam state settings.
[0085]
Based on the above recognition, an improved mechanism for determining beam reciprocity is also proposed. The basic principle of the beam reciprocity determination mechanism is to match the channel path parameters under the uplink beam with the channel path parameters under the downlink beam, and if the two meet the matching condition, it is determined that the beam reciprocity is satisfied.
[0086]
The reciprocity measurement technology proposed in the present disclosure can measure beam reciprocity for a specific channel state of a specific user with higher accuracy.
[0087]
On the other hand, based on the above recognition, an improved beam management mechanism is also proposed. The basic principle of the beam management mechanism is to estimate the time-domain path parameters of the channels under each beam, and to select a specific transmission beam for subsequent operations based on the estimated time-domain path parameters.
[0088]
Various implementations of the technical solutions of the present disclosure will be described in detail below.
[0089]
It should be pointed out that the technical solution of the present disclosure is mainly applied in combination with beam scanning/forming technology, which facilitates beam scanning/forming by estimating, matching and judging each scanned beam in beam scanning/forming The progress. The technology of beam scanning/shaping can be applied in various operation stages of the wireless communication system. Therefore, the technical solution of the present disclosure can also be applied in these operation stages of the wireless communication system, thereby improving beam scanning/shaping in these stages. The realization.
[0090]
On the one hand, beamforming technology can be particularly applied to a communication process between a base station and a terminal device via a reference signal. As an example, beamforming can be used in the data transceiving process between the base station and the terminal device. After the downlink beam scanning and uplink beam scanning processes are completed by using the reference signal, the established BPL is used to perform subsequent data and/or control signal transmission. In this case, the technical solution of the present disclosure may be performed based on the reference signal.
[0091]
The reference signal is a known signal provided by the transmitting end to the receiving end for channel estimation or channel detection. It can be used for various measurements and to determine the actual channel conditions experienced by the radio signal from the base station to the UE. Compared with theoretical methods such as geographic location estimation, channel estimation based on reference signals is more accurate. The reference signal is of great significance for mobility management, resource allocation, MIMO operation, and data demodulation.
[0092]
According to the transmission direction, reference signals can be typically divided into uplink reference signals and downlink reference signals. In the time domain and/or frequency domain, reference signals and user data streams are multiplexed for uplink resources or downlink resources, and the reference signals occupy certain communication resources. The downlink reference signal is a predefined signal sent from the base station to the UE that occupies a specific downlink communication resource (for example, a specific resource element in a time-frequency resource block), and is used for downlink channel estimation, downlink channel detection, cell search, etc. Downlink reference signals include, but are not limited to, cell reference signals (CRS), data demodulation reference signals (DMRS), channel state information reference signals (CSI-RS), and so on. The uplink reference signal is a predefined signal that is sent from the UE to the base station and occupies a specific uplink communication resource (for example, a specific resource element in a time-frequency resource block), and is used for uplink channel estimation, uplink channel quality measurement, and the like. The uplink reference signal includes, but is not limited to, DMRS, sounding reference signal (SRS), etc., for example. In one example, CSI-RS is used for downlink channel state feedback.
[0093]
The "communication resources" mentioned here have different meanings in different communication systems. For example, "communication resources" may be time domain and/or frequency domain resources. Taking LTE as an example, each LTE frame (10ms) can be divided into 10 subframes of equal size, each subframe (1ms) can include 2 consecutive time slots, and each time slot includes a resource block (Resource Block, RB), the resource block can be represented by a resource grid, and the resource network can be divided into multiple resource elements (Resource Elements, RE). For example, each resource block contains 12 consecutive subcarriers in the frequency domain, and In terms of the normal cyclic prefix in each OFDM symbol, each resource block includes 7 consecutive OFDM symbols in the time domain, that is, each resource block includes 84 resource elements. In such an LTE frame, symbols of user data or reference signals are allocated corresponding resource elements. However, in addition to time-frequency resources, "communication resources" can also refer to space domain resources or code domain resources.
[0094]
In the communication system of the present disclosure, different reference signals usually have different usage scenarios and purposes. For example, DMRS may be mainly sent along with PUCCH, PDCCH, PUSCH or PDSCH for the base station to perform channel state estimation and related demodulation. The SRS can be sent periodically or non-periodically for the base station to perform channel state estimation in order to support uplink channel-dependent scheduling and link adaptation.
[0095]
In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the reference signal may be a reference signal specially used for channel estimation, such as CSI-RS/SRS; or a reference signal used for demodulation, such as DMRS, which is inserted in the data. It can be inserted sparsely and less than the existing ones), in which the receiving end uses the DMRS on some subcarriers to obtain channels on other subcarriers on the entire resource block carrying data and use them for demodulation. Of course, depending on the specific application of the communication system, the reference signal may also be other types of reference signals.
[0096]
On the other hand, beamforming technology can be particularly applied to a communication process between a base station and a terminal device via a synchronization signal. The initial connection/synchronization between the terminal equipment and the base station (including, for example, the base station sends a synchronization signal (Synchronization Signal, SS), the terminal equipment sends a random access signal to the base station) is the first to enable the terminal equipment to communicate with the base station properly. step. For example, beamforming technology can be used in the process of receiving and sending synchronization signals and the process of receiving and sending random access signals. In such synchronization signal beamforming, the technical solution of the present disclosure is also applicable to compensate for the loss of the synchronization signal to ensure that the terminal device appropriately performs the downlink synchronization and random access procedures.
[0097]
Generally speaking, the synchronization signal may include a synchronization sequence, which is known to both the base station and the terminal equipment. For example, in the LTE system, the synchronization signal includes a primary synchronization signal (Primary Synchronization Signal, PSS) and a secondary synchronization signal (Secondary Synchronization Signal, SSS). The primary synchronization signal can be a Zadoff-Chu sequence with a length of 63, and the secondary synchronization signal can be a sequence with a length of 62 and is obtained by concatenating two M sequences with a length of 31. Moreover, the synchronization signal may be sent in a certain time period or time pattern. For example, the synchronization signal may be sent at a fixed position (for example, a fixed subframe, a time slot, and a symbol position) in a downlink frame.
[0098]
In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the transmission of the synchronization signal may indicate the transmission beam information used for transmitting the synchronization signal, so that the terminal device can obtain the transmission beam information by receiving the synchronization signal. According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, the synchronization signal may be repeatedly transmitted by the base station to multiple terminal devices including the terminal device using different transmission beams based on the transmission beam configuration, and the synchronization signal may include the transmission beam used to transmit the synchronization signal information.
[0099]
The terminal device can receive the synchronization signal in many ways. When receiving the synchronization signal, the terminal device may at least determine the transmission beam of the base station that matches the terminal device, and feed back the matched transmission beam to the base station in any appropriate manner. At least the transmission beam of the matched base station can be used for subsequent communication between the base station and the terminal device (including the random access process and the data transceiving process).
[0100]
In an embodiment, the terminal device may also use receive beamforming when receiving the synchronization signal. At this time, it can be determined that the receiving beam on the terminal device side and the transmitting beam on the base station side that match when the synchronization signal is successfully received, and the matched transmitting beam can be fed back to the base station. In some embodiments, when the terminal device also adopts beamforming technology to receive the synchronization signal, the terminal device may also set the receiving beam of the terminal device to receive the synchronization signal based on the transmission beam configuration of the synchronization signal transmitted by the base station. For example, since the terminal device needs to perform receive beam scanning, that is, use different receive beams to receive signals sent by the base station side through the same transmit beam, the terminal device may need to know the transmit beam configuration of the base station. In an example, the transmission beam configuration of the base station may be notified to the terminal device in advance. For example, the terminal device may obtain the transmission beam configuration information of the base station from another base station. In another example, the terminal device can obtain the transmission beam configuration of the base station from the synchronization signal transmitted by the base station. For example, the terminal device can estimate the transmission beam configuration of the base station through the synchronization signal measurement process.
[0101]
The embodiments of the present disclosure can be used in various communication frequency bands, including traditional radio frequency communication frequency bands ranging from several hundred MHz to several GHz. As the frequency band of the wireless communication system increases, for example, 26 GHz, 60 GHz or higher frequency bands are used, the wireless channel will experience greater path loss, atmospheric absorption loss and other negative effects than low frequency bands (such as 2 GHz). Therefore, the technical solution according to the present disclosure is equally applicable to high frequency band (for example, millimeter wave) communication, and is even more important.
[0102]
The embodiments of the present disclosure may have multiple implementation modes, and may be applied to multiple wireless communication systems, and are especially suitable for wireless communication systems with channel sparsity.
[0103]
According to some embodiments, the embodiments of the present disclosure can be particularly preferably used in a millimeter wave orthogonal frequency division multiplexing system, using the sparsity of the millimeter wave channel itself and its stronger sparsity after beamforming to achieve improvements Beam management.
[0104]
According to some embodiments, the embodiments of the present disclosure can also be applied to a wireless communication system that communicates mainly through a direct beam. For example, in addition to the direct radiation path of millimeter wave systems, in traditional decimeter wave/centimeter wave systems, there are now scenarios where aircraft and ground base stations communicate. In this case, most aircraft and base stations have direct radiation paths. There are not many obstacles, and it is also suitable for the setting of the present disclosure.
[0105]
It should be pointed out that the above-mentioned application scenarios are only exemplary, and the embodiments of the present disclosure may also be used in other wireless channel systems with channel sparsity.
[0106]
According to some embodiments, the communication system described in this disclosure is an OFDM-based communication system, and communication resources correspond to subcarriers. The following will elaborate on this in detail, but it should be understood that the implementation described below can be equally applied to other types of communication resources. As an example, an OFDM-based non-orthogonal multiple access NOMA communication system can also be used.
[0107]
Hereinafter, the basic implementation of the embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be pointed out that these basic implementations can be equally applied to the foregoing transmitter/receiver embodiments, and can also be applied to other embodiments of the present disclosure.
[0108]
System Configuration
[0109]
FIG. 5 shows a schematic diagram of a communication system 0200 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The communication system 0200 may include a communication device 0210 and a communication device 0220 that perform wireless communication with each other. Although one communication device 0210 and one communication device 0220 are shown in FIG. 5, the communication device 0210 can communicate with multiple communication devices 0220, and the communication device 0220 can communicate with multiple communication devices 0210 (for example, in the case of multi-point cooperation) under).
[0110]
The communication device 0210 may include an electronic device 0211 and an antenna 0213. In addition, the communication device 0210 may also include other components not shown, such as a radio frequency link, a baseband processing unit, a network interface, a processor, a memory, and a controller. The electronic device 0211 may be associated with the antenna 0213. For example, the electronic device 0211 may be connected to the antenna 0213 directly or indirectly (for example, other components may be connected in between), transmit radio signals via the antenna 0213, and receive radio signals via the antenna 0213.
[0111]
The electronic device 0211 may include a processing circuit 0212. In addition, the electronic device 0211 may also include an input and output interface, memory, and so on. The processing circuit 0212 in the electronic device 0211 can output signals (digital or analog) to other components in the communication device 0210, and can also receive signals (digital or analog) from other components in the communication device 0210. In addition, the processing circuit 0212 can also control part or all of the operations of other components in the communication device 0210.
[0112]
The processing circuit 0212 may be in the form of a general-purpose processor, or a dedicated processing circuit, such as an ASIC. For example, the processing circuit 0212 can be constructed by a circuit (hardware) or a central processing device (such as a central processing unit (CPU)). In addition, the processing circuit 0212 may carry a program (software) for operating the circuit (hardware) or the central processing device. The program can be stored in a memory (such as arranged in a communication device 0210 or an electronic device 0211) or an external storage medium connected from the outside, and downloaded via a network (such as the Internet).
[0113]
Although FIG. 5 shows that the electronic device 0211 is separated from the antenna 0213, the electronic device 0211 may also be implemented to include the antenna 0213. In addition, the electronic device 0211 may also be implemented as including one or more other components in the communication device 0210, or the electronic device 0211 may be implemented as the communication device 0210 itself. In actual implementation, the electronic device 0211 may be implemented as a chip (such as an integrated circuit module including a single wafer), a hardware component, or a complete product.
[0114]
The communication device 0220 may include an electronic device 0221 and an antenna 0223, and the electronic device 0221 includes a processing circuit 0222. In addition, the above description of the structure of the communication device 0210 is also applicable to the communication device 0220, which will not be repeated here.
[0115]
The communication system 0200 may be a cellular communication system, a machine type communication (MTC, Machine Type Communication) system, a self-organizing network, or a cognitive radio system (for example, IEEE P802.19.1a and Spectrum Access System (SAS)), etc. .
[0116]
The communication device 0210 can be implemented as a base station (BS), small base station, Node B, e-NodeB (eNB), g-NodeB (gNB), relay, etc. in a cellular communication system, terminal equipment in a machine type communication system, Sensor nodes in self-organizing networks, Coexistence Managers (CM), SAS, etc. in cognitive radio systems. For example, the communication device 0210 may preferably be implemented as any type of node gNB, such as a macro gNB (associated with a macro cell) and a small gNB (associated with a small cell). The small gNB may be a gNB that covers a cell smaller than a macro cell, such as pico gNB, micro gNB, and home (femto) gNB. Instead, the communication device 0210 may be implemented as any other type of base station, such as eNB, NodeB, and base transceiver station (BTS). The communication device 0210 may include: a main body (also referred to as a base station device) configured to control wireless communication; and one or more remote radio heads (RRH) arranged in a different place from the main body. In addition, various types of terminals to be described later can operate as the communication device 0210 by temporarily or semi-persistently performing base station functions.
[0117]
The communication apparatus 0220 may be implemented as a terminal device or user equipment (UE). For example, the communication device 0220 can be implemented as a mobile terminal (such as a smart phone, a tablet personal computer (PC), a notebook PC, a portable game terminal, a portable/dongle type mobile router, and a digital camera), a drone, or a vehicle-mounted terminal (Such as car navigation equipment). The communication device 0220 may also be implemented as a terminal (also referred to as a machine type communication (MTC) terminal) that performs machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. In addition, the communication device 0220 may be a wireless communication module (such as an integrated circuit module including a single chip) installed on each of the aforementioned terminals. The communication device 0220 can also be implemented as a smart meter, a smart home appliance, or a Geolocation Capability Object (GCO) in a cognitive radio system, or a Citizens Broadband Radio Service Device (CBSD).
[0118]
For simplicity of description, the processing of communication devices 0210 and 0220 will be described below assuming that the communication device 0210 is a base station and the communication device 0220 is a user equipment, and the communication from the communication device 0210 to the communication device 0220 is called downlink. The communication from the communication device 0220 to the communication device 0210 is called uplink. Note that when the communication device 0210 is not a base station and the communication device 0220 is not a user equipment, for example, in the case of Proxmity-based service communication between two user equipment or wireless communication between two base stations Next, the communication devices 0210 and 0220 can also perform the processing described below. In addition, part or all of the processing performed by the communication devices 0210 and 0220 described below can be executed by the processing circuits 0212 and 0222, or the processing circuits 0212 and 0222 can control other components and/or other components in the communication devices 0210 and 0220. The components in the device are implemented.
[0119]
The electronic device described in the present disclosure may also be implemented in various other ways. According to some embodiments, the processing circuit of the electronic device may include various units to implement various embodiments according to the present disclosure. For example, the processing circuit of the electronic device at the receiver may include various estimation units to implement various estimation operations described in the text. The processing circuit of the electronic device at the transmitter end may also include a sending and receiving unit to implement various operations performed on the transmitter end as described in the article.
[0120]
First embodiment
[0121]
The first embodiment of the present disclosure is described in detail below. The first embodiment of the present disclosure mainly relates to an improved fast beam management, which uses the matching condition between the channel path parameters under the first beam and the channel path parameters under the second beam covered by the first beam, To select a specific second beam.
[0122]
According to some embodiments, an electronic device for the receiver side in a wireless communication system is proposed. According to an embodiment, the electronic device may include a processing circuit. The processing circuit may be configured to estimate the transmitter to the second beam corresponding to the reference signal transmitted via at least one second beam included in the coverage of the first beam from the transmitter end of the wireless communication system. The channel path parameters of the receiver. Wherein, a specific second beam of the at least one second beam may be selected based on the estimated channel path parameter, the estimated channel path parameter corresponding to the specific second beam and the channel corresponding to the first beam Path parameters match.
[0123]
According to some embodiments, an electronic device for the transmitter side of a wireless communication system is proposed. According to an embodiment, the electronic device may include a processing circuit. The processing circuit may be configured to transmit the reference signal to the receiver end of the wireless communication system via at least one second beam included in the first beam. Wherein, a specific second beam of the at least one second beam may be selected based on the estimated channel path parameter from the transmitter to the receiver corresponding to the second beam, which corresponds to the specific second beam The estimated channel path parameter matches the channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam.
[0124]
According to some embodiments, the processing circuit of the electronic device may include various units to implement various embodiments according to the present disclosure. Of course, the processing circuit can also be implemented in other ways, and is not limited to this.
[0125]
FIG. 6A shows an exemplary implementation of an electronic device 600 for the receiver side according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. In an embodiment, the electronic device 600 may be implemented as a receiver or a part thereof, or may be implemented as a device or a part of the device for controlling the receiver or otherwise related to the receiver.
[0126]
The electronic device 600 shown in FIG. 6A may include a processing circuit 601, which may refer to various implementations of a digital circuit system, an analog circuit system, or a mixed signal (combination of analog signal and digital signal) circuit system that performs functions in a computing system. The processing circuit may include, for example, circuits such as integrated circuits (ICs), application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), parts or circuits of individual processor cores, entire processor cores, individual processors, such as field programmable arrays (FPGAs) ) Programmable hardware devices, and/or systems including multiple processors.
[0127]
In an embodiment, the processing circuit 601 at least includes an estimation unit 602. The various operations described below may be implemented by the unit 602 of the electronic device 600 or other possible units.
[0128]
In an embodiment, the estimating unit 602 may estimate the reference signal from the transmitter of the wireless communication system based on at least one second beam included in the coverage of the first beam to estimate the Channel path parameters from the transmitter to the receiver. The corresponding estimation processing will be described in detail below.
[0129]
The processing circuit may further include a selection unit 603, which may select a specific second beam of the at least one second beam based on the estimated channel path parameter, wherein the estimated channel path corresponding to the specific second beam The parameters match the channel path parameters corresponding to the first beam. According to some aspects, the selection unit 603 may include a comparison unit that may compare the estimated channel path parameter corresponding to the second beam with the channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam. If the comparison result satisfies the matching condition, the second beam may be selected as a specific second beam by the selection unit.
[0130]
It should be pointed out that such a selection unit 603 is not necessarily located in the processing circuit, and may also be located outside the processing circuit or outside the electronic device. Therefore, the selection unit 603 is shown with a dotted line in the figure, and the corresponding processing will be described in detail below.
[0131]
The electronic device 600 may further include, for example, a communication unit 604 and a memory 605.
[0132]
The communication unit 604 may be configured to communicate with the receiving end under the control of the processing circuit 601. In an example, the communication unit 604 may be implemented as a transmitter or a transceiver, including communication components such as the antenna array and/or radio frequency link described above. In an embodiment, the communication unit may provide the estimation result obtained in the processing circuit 601 to the base station electronic device. In an embodiment, the communication unit may also send and receive information for beamforming processing, and may even include a processing unit for beamforming processing. Of course, such a processing unit may be outside the communication unit.
[0133]
The communication unit 604 is drawn with a dotted line because it can also be located outside the electronic device 600.
[0134]
The memory 605 may store various information generated by the processing circuit 601 (for example, information about beam training, information about the target channel direction, and basic compensation phase information, etc.), programs and data for the operation of the electronic device 600, and will be used by the communication unit 604 sent data etc. The memory 605 is drawn with a dashed line because it can also be located in the processing circuit 601 or located outside the electronic device 600. The memory 605 may be a volatile memory and/or a non-volatile memory. For example, the memory 605 may include, but is not limited to, random access memory (RAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random access memory (SRAM), read only memory (ROM), flash memory.
[0135]
FIG. 6B shows an exemplary implementation of an electronic device used at the transmitter end according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The electronic device 610 shown in FIG. 6B may include a processing circuit 611, which may be implemented in various ways as described above.
[0136]
In an embodiment, the processing circuit 611 may include a sending unit 612 and a receiving unit 613. Various operations below can be implemented by units 612 and 613 or other possible units.
[0137]
In an embodiment, the sending unit 612 may transmit the reference signal to the receiver end of the wireless communication system via at least one second beam included in the first beam. The receiving unit 613 may receive any information about the estimation result from the receiver, such as estimated channel path parameters, beam information of the selected beam, and so on.
[0138]
The processing circuit may further include a selection unit 614, which may select a specific second of the at least one second beam based on the estimated channel path parameter from the transmitter to the receiver corresponding to the second beam. For the beam, the estimated channel path parameter corresponding to the specific second beam matches the channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam. According to some aspects, the selection unit 614 may be implemented similarly to the selection unit 603 shown in FIG. 6A. It should be pointed out that such a selection unit 614 is not necessarily located in the processing circuit, and may also be located outside the processing circuit or outside the electronic device. Therefore, the selection unit 614 is shown with a dotted line in the figure, and the corresponding processing will be described in detail below.
[0139]
The electronic device 610 may further include, for example, a communication unit and a memory as described above.
[0140]
It should be noted that the above-mentioned units are only logical modules divided according to the specific functions they implement, and are not used to limit specific implementation manners. For example, they may be implemented in software, hardware, or a combination of software and hardware. In actual implementation, each of the aforementioned units may be implemented as an independent physical entity, or may also be implemented by a single entity (for example, a processor (CPU or DSP, etc.), an integrated circuit, etc.).
[0141]
It should be noted that the arrangement of the above-mentioned units is only exemplary, and not limited to the above-mentioned situation. For example, considering that the estimation process can also be distributed on both sides of the receiver and the transmitter, part of the functions in the estimation unit at the receiver side can also be distributed at least partly on the transmitter side by receiving feedback information from the receiver. Further calculations. In addition, for example, the transmitting and receiving units at the transmitter end may also be arranged at the receiver end.
[0142]
It should be noted that the aforementioned transmitter end and receiver end may correspond to parties in the wireless communication system. For example, the transmitter end may correspond to a base station, and the receiver end may correspond to a user equipment. Such an operation particularly corresponds to downlink communication transmission. For example, the transmitter end may correspond to the user equipment, and the receiver end may correspond to the base station, and such an operation particularly corresponds to uplink communication transmission.
[0143]
An exemplary implementation of the beam management mechanism in this embodiment will be described in detail below. FIG. 7 shows an exemplary flow of the beam management mechanism according to this embodiment, which is particularly suitable for the case of hierarchical beam management. The following description is made with reference to a case including a first-level beam (first beam) and a second-level beam (second beam), but it should be understood that the embodiments of the present disclosure can be equally applied to the case of more-level beams, where The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present disclosure can be applied to beams of every two adjacent levels.
[0144]
First, estimate the channel path parameters under the second beam covered by the first beam (step 701).
[0145]
Generally, at least two second beams may be covered under the first beam, so the estimation step is performed for the at least two second beams respectively. The at least two second beams can be sequenced and numbered in any order, so that the channel path parameter estimations can be sequentially performed on each second beam in any order accordingly.
[0146]
In the operation of step 701, channel path parameter estimation is performed for one second beam each time, and this estimation can be performed as described below.
[0147]
Then, the estimated channel path parameters under the second beam and the channel path parameters under the first beam are compared to determine whether they match (step 702).
[0148]
The channel path parameter of the first beam may be obtained in advance through various methods. For example, the channel path parameter of the first beam may be estimated by an estimation method similar to the channel path parameter estimation of the second beam.
[0149]
In addition, depending on the application context of the technical solution of the present disclosure, the estimation of the channel path parameters of the first beam can be performed at a similar stage as the estimation of the channel path parameters of the second beam, for example, both can be configured for reference in beamforming The signal is executed during the beam scanning stage. In this case, the estimation of the channel path parameters of the first beam and the estimation of the channel path parameters of the second beam are both performed with reference signals. Of course, the reference signals applied to both can be the same. Can be different. According to some embodiments, the reference signal includes one or more of CSI-RS, UE-RS, SRS, and DMRS.
[0150]
According to some aspects, the estimation of the channel path parameters of the first beam may be performed at different stages from the estimation of the channel path parameters of the second beam. For example, the estimation of the channel path parameters of the first beam can be performed in a stage before the estimation of the channel path parameters of the second beam. For example, the estimation of the channel path parameters of the first beam can be used in beamforming to perform initial synchronization/ In this case, the channel path parameters of the first beam can be estimated using synchronization signals, and the channel path parameters of the second beam can be estimated in the subsequent configuration reference signal. The scanning phase is carried out. According to some embodiments, the synchronization signal includes one or both of PSS or SSS.
[0151]
Next, if they match, the second beam is selected as an appropriate second beam, and the channel path parameter estimation for the remaining second beams is stopped.
[0152]
If they do not match, if the second beam still exists, continue to perform the channel parameter estimation and matching described above for the remaining second beams in sequence until a matching second beam is found. It should be noted that if no match is found after all the second beams are estimated, the second beam with the best estimated channel path parameter among all the second beams can be selected as the specific second beam.
[0153]
It should be pointed out that the basic operation procedure of the beam management scheme according to the first embodiment of the present disclosure is mainly briefly described here, and is not particularly limited to uplink communication or downlink communication. That is, the beam management scheme according to the first embodiment of the present disclosure is applicable to each of uplink communication and downlink communication. For example, in downlink communication, the transmitter end and the receiver end can correspond to the base station and the terminal equipment, respectively, and the first beam and the second beam are the first downlink transmit beam and the second downlink transmit beam originating from the transmitter, respectively. In uplink communication, the transmitter end and the receiver end can respectively correspond to the terminal equipment and the base station, and the first beam and the second beam are respectively the first uplink transmission beam and the second uplink transmission beam originating from the terminal equipment.
[0154]
In addition, the execution subject of each step is not specifically limited. These steps can all be performed on one side of the wireless communication system, for example, they are all performed on the receiver end (downlink communication) or the transmitter end (uplink communication) of the wireless communication system, or they can be distributed on both sides of the wireless communication system.
[0155]
According to some aspects, the above-mentioned operations can be performed by the receiver side of the wireless communication system. In this case, the receiver end estimates the channel path parameters corresponding to the second transmit beam based on the reference signal transmitted via the second transmit beam from the transmitter end. The receiver end can select an appropriate second transmit beam, and feed back the selected second beam beam information to the transmitter end.
[0156]
According to some aspects, the beam information fed back may include at least one or both of beam index and beam quality. For example, the beam quality may include at least one of parameters such as received power such as RSRP, signal-to-interference and noise ratio such as SINR, time domain gain, and error rate such as BLER.
[0157]
According to some embodiments, after the specific second beam is selected, the receiver end will stop the estimation of the channel path parameters corresponding to the remaining second beams. Additionally or alternatively, according to some embodiments, after the specific second beam is selected, the receiver may inform the transmitter to stop transmitting reference signals via other second beams.
[0158]
According to other aspects, the above-mentioned selection step may be performed by the transmitter of the wireless communication system. According to some embodiments, the estimated channel path parameters corresponding to the second beam are fed back to the transmitter. Thus, the transmitter end can match the received channel path parameters of the second beam with the channel path parameters of the first beam, thereby selecting a specific second beam. According to some embodiments, after the specific second beam is selected, the transmitter end may stop transmitting the reference signal via other second beams.
[0159]
According to some embodiments, after the specific second beam is selected, the transmitter end may provide beam information of the specific second beam to the receiver end. According to some embodiments, the beam information includes at least one or both of beam index and beam quality. For example, the beam quality may include at least one of RSRP, time domain gain, BLER and other parameters.
[0160]
According to some aspects, the first beam is determined by a beam scanning operation from the transmitter end to the receiver end in the first beam set. This beam scanning operation can be implemented by a variety of well-known beam scanning techniques, which will not be described in detail here.
[0161]
According to some aspects, the channel path parameters corresponding to the first beam may be estimated at the receiver end. According to some embodiments, the channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam is estimated based on a reference signal or a synchronization signal transmitted based on the first beam from the transmitter. Thus, the receiving end can perform matching according to both the channel path parameter of the first beam and the channel path parameter of the second beam.
[0162]
In the case that the matching operation will be performed at the transmitter end, according to some embodiments, the estimated channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam may be fed back from the receiver end to the transmitter end. Alternatively, the channel path parameters corresponding to the first beam may be notified to the transmitter by other devices. Thus, the transmitter can perform matching based on both the channel path parameter of the first beam and the channel path parameter of the second beam fed back.
[0163]
Of course, this matching and selection operation can also be performed on devices other than the receiver and transmitter, as long as the device can obtain the estimated channel path parameters and inform the transmitter and/or receiver of the selection result. can.
[0164]
Next, the channel path parameters corresponding to the beam to be estimated will be described in further detail.
[0165]
According to some embodiments, the channel path parameter to be estimated may include path gain. According to some embodiments, the channel path parameter includes the magnitude of the path gain in the time domain. According to some embodiments, the channel path parameter may also include path delay.
[0166]
In the following, an example of channel path parameters will be understood in more detail in conjunction with the channel model in the wireless system, especially the millimeter wave system. FIG. 8 shows the schematic structure of the millimeter wave large-scale multiple input multiple output antenna system transceiver.
[0167]
The millimeter wave time domain channel can be described by the following formula:
[0168]

[0169]
Where L is the number of paths, where L is usually small, especially in the sparse case. [alpha] l and [tau] l is a complex gain and delay article l paths, A R & lt and A T is the receiver and the transmitting end antenna response vector, N R & lt and N T is the receiver and the end number of antennas transmitting, θ and φ, respectively Represents the horizontal and vertical departure angle/arrival angle. Furthermore, the frequency domain channel can be expressed as
[0170]

[0171]
In the OFDM system, the channel coefficient on the nth, 0≤n≤N-1 subcarrier can be expressed as
[0172]

[0173]
Where Δf is the subcarrier spacing. Assume that the sending end uses beam receiving end receives the beam is a baseband equivalent channel after beamforming may be expressed as:
[0174]

[0175]
Wherein the equivalent path gain article l.
[0176]
By sending reference signals on OFDM subcarriers, we can estimate channel path parameters, which can include channel path gains and channel path delays.
[0177]
Therefore, by referring to the above model to estimate the channel path parameters corresponding to the beam, and matching the path parameters of the first beam with the path parameters of the second beam covered by it, a specific second beam can be determined relatively quickly. The basic working principle of the embodiment.
[0178]
An exemplary estimation of channel path parameters, especially channel path gain and channel path delay will be described below.
[0179]
According to some embodiments, the channel path parameters can be estimated by the following operations: estimating the channel state on the communication resource carrying the reference signal based on the reference signal from the transmitter; and using the estimated channel state of the communication resource to estimate Channel path parameters.
[0180]
Here, taking the uniform insertion of reference signals on the OFDM subcarriers as an example, an exemplary implementation process of path delay and gain estimation is given. It should be noted that this estimation process is only an example, and can be equally applied to estimation processes based on other signals (for example, synchronization signals).
[0181]
As shown in Fig. 9, suppose that the number of OFDM subcarriers is N, the number of reference signals is K, the reference signal interval is K p , and the subcarrier index of the first reference signal is N s . Reference signals in the existing LTE system, such as UE-RS, CSI-RS, PSS, SRS, DMRS, etc., can all be described by this model. Using classic channel estimation algorithms such as the latest squares, minimum mean square error, etc., the channel estimation on the sub-carrier of the transmission reference signal can be obtained as 0≤k≤K-1.
[0182]
According to the above channel model, we can get
[0183]

[0184]

[0185]
Wherein the channel on subcarrier estimation transmitting reference signals, Φ and A are respectively delay matrix and a gain matrix.
[0186]
Then mathematical operations can be performed on the above model formula. The above problem is a classic spectrum analysis problem. Some classic algorithms can be used, such as the algorithm based on Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), MUltiple SIgnal Classification (MUSIC) algorithm, Estimating Signal Parameters via Rotational Invariance Techniques (ESPRIT) algorithm, etc., to estimate the path Delay. Then the least square algorithm to estimate the gain matrix noted that in this embodiment of the present disclosure, we are concerned with the magnitude of path gain (i.e., | A |), regardless of its phase.
[0187]
Here is a brief description of the process of using the FFT algorithm to estimate the path delay. The channel estimation make N FFT point FFT changes, the time-domain impulse response is obtained, and to obtain a plurality of peak amplitude is greater than a certain threshold value, so that said its index, the path delay estimation result can be obtained
[0188]

[0189]
An example of path delay estimation is given in Fig. 10, where K=64 reference signals with an interval of K p =8 are used, the sub-carrier interval is Δf=120kHz, and N fft =2048 point FFT transformation is adopted . Figure 10 shows the channel estimating the magnitude of each element in the FFT transform can be seen that the presence of two peaks is greater than the threshold value and can be obtained path delay estimation result and
[0190]
It should be noted that the estimation of channel path parameters is also related to the configuration of the reference signal on the subcarriers. In the embodiment of the present disclosure, the predetermined interval K p between reference signals and/or the setting of the number K of subcarriers carrying reference signals may affect the channel estimation performance.
[0191]
The maximum delay estimation range of delay beyond the scope of this path can not be estimated;
[0192]
Delay estimation accuracy, which indicates the accuracy of delay estimation for a certain path path under noise-free conditions;
[0193]
Delay estimation resolution is expressed as the minimum delay difference between different paths that does not cause aliasing , that is , paths with delay difference less than Δτ cannot be distinguished during delay estimation.
[0194]
It can be seen that increasing the reference signal interval K p can improve the delay estimation accuracy and resolution, and increasing the number of reference signals K can improve the delay estimation resolution. From the above, the relationship between the configuration of the reference signal and the channel path parameter estimation can be clearly understood, and based on this, the reference signal, especially the interval and data of the reference signal can be appropriately configured.
[0195]
According to some embodiments, the reference signals are distributed at predetermined intervals in the frequency domain, and the predetermined interval is determined based on the maximum delay spread of the channel and the frequency domain interval of adjacent communication resources in the communication system.
[0196]
According to some embodiments, the number of reference signals may be determined based on the accuracy of the channel estimation and the total bandwidth of the first frequency domain range expected to be occupied by the subcarriers containing the reference signals.
[0197]
The setting of the number of reference signals will be exemplarily described below.
[0198]
For example, when K p is fixed, when the total number of pilots K s increases, the estimation accuracy will increase accordingly. The reason is that when K s increases, the sidelobe effect of 1024-point FFT caused by the zero-padded operation will be reduced, and the width of the main lobe will be narrowed, which will improve the estimation accuracy of the total path number L and path delay parameter Δ l . In addition, the estimation accuracy of the least square method used when estimating the intensity parameter β l will also increase as K s increases. However, as the value of K s increases, the pilot overhead will also increase.
[0199]
On the contrary, if the value of K s is too small, the side lobe amplitude corresponding to the peak of the FFT spectrum will be larger and the main lobe width will be larger, resulting in a larger estimation error. It is assumed that the number of FFT points used in path estimation is 2 n (1024-FFT corresponds to n=10), in order to ensure the estimation accuracy K s should meet
[0200]

[0201]
For example, if 1024-FFT is used, at least the value of K s is 16.
[0202]
Based on the above content, for the selection of K p and K s , the upper bound of K p should be determined according to the maximum delay spread of the channel and the subcarrier spacing , and a larger K p should be selected under the premise of not exceeding the upper bound . Further, the lower bound of K s is determined according to the number of FFT points selected , and the bandwidth and pilot overhead are considered at the same time. On the basis of this lower bound, the largest possible K s can be used to improve the accuracy of channel estimation.
[0203]
The bandwidth of the frequency band containing the pilot is about the bandwidth of K p K s sub-carriers. If the bandwidth corresponding to the K p K s sub-carriers still exceeds the expected total bandwidth when K s is the minimum , then it can be reduced by The value of the small K p makes the bandwidth corresponding to the K p K s subcarriers smaller than the expected total bandwidth.
[0204]
In terms of implementation, the existing uplink and downlink reference signals in the LTE standard can be used for path delay and gain estimation, such as the following PSS (Primary Synchronization Signal), CSI-RS, UE-RS, and downlink SRS, DMRS, etc. The PSS signal is located in the center of K=62 sub-carriers, the sub-carrier spacing K p =1, and the accuracy and resolution of the delay estimation are relatively low. Moreover, since the PSS signal is only broadcast through a wide beam, it can only be used for delay estimation under a wide beam. The advantage is that the PSS signal is broadcast periodically and does not require additional resources. For CSI-RS and UE-RS, the number is configurable, and the subcarrier spacing is relatively large (CSI-RS: K p＝12, UE-RS: K p＝6), so a more accurate delay can be achieved estimate. CSI-RS and UE-RS can be configured in a wide beam or a narrow beam. In addition, SRS and DMRS are also continuously distributed (K p =1), and their number depends on the uplink bandwidth allocated to users. In order to improve the accuracy of the delay estimation, channel estimation can be at the receiving end for sampling, an equivalent increase subcarrier spacing K P . SRS and DMRS are suitable for delay estimation under wide beam and narrow beam.
[0205]
It should be pointed out that the arrangement of the reference signals is not limited to the above-mentioned uniform arrangement, and other arrangements can also be adopted.
[0206]
According to some embodiments, the reference signal may be arranged only on a part of the subcarriers of the communication system; and the reference signal may be sent to the receiver end through the part of the subcarriers. As shown in FIG. 11, the reference signal may only be distributed on sub-carriers in a part of the frequency domain (such as the first frequency domain) of the communication system, and this part of the frequency domain is only a small part of the entire frequency domain.
[0207]
According to an embodiment, the reference signal may be distributed on a communication resource in a first frequency domain range of the communication system, and the frequency domain resource of the communication system is divided into a plurality of positive signals including the first frequency domain range. The frequency domain range of the intersection.
[0208]
According to some embodiments, the distribution of the reference signal may also consider the time slot. In some implementations, reference signals distributed at least in one time slot are used to jointly estimate the channel state of the subcarriers containing the reference signal.
[0209]
According to some embodiments, the reference signal is distributed in the entire transmission frequency band in a specific time slot, and the reference signal is only distributed in a part of the frequency band in the remaining time slots except for the specific time slot.
[0210]
According to some embodiments, in all time slots, the reference signal is only distributed over a part of the frequency band.
[0211]
According to some embodiments, for even-numbered time slots and odd-numbered time slots, the reference signal is alternately distributed in the lower half of the frequency band range or the higher frequency half of the frequency band.
[0212]
Next, the fast beam management mechanism according to this embodiment will be further described in conjunction with the aforementioned channel path parameters. Based on the estimation results of the channel path parameters obtained through the above estimation process, this embodiment can be compared to achieve advantageous fast beam management.
[0213]
The basic principle of the fast beam management mechanism of the present disclosure is that the channel path under the narrow beam is a subset of the channel path under the wide beam, so the path delay measured under the narrow beam should match the measurement result under the wide beam. If a narrow beam that satisfies the matching condition is searched during the beam scanning process, the narrow beam can be selected as the optimal beam direction without scanning the remaining candidate beams, thereby reducing the overhead and delay of beam scanning.
[0214]
According to some embodiments, the channel path parameter to be estimated may include path gain. In this case, when the path gain of the channel path corresponding to the second beam is greater than the path gain of the target path corresponding to the first beam by more than the gain threshold, it can be considered that the channel path parameters corresponding to the second beam correspond to The channel path parameters of the first beam are matched.
[0215]
According to some embodiments, the gain threshold is set based on the difference between the maximum path gain corresponding to the first beam and the maximum path gain corresponding to the second beam. In this disclosure, the gain threshold may also be referred to as a gain matching parameter.
[0216]
This scheme of matching the narrow beam and the wide beam by estimating the path gain corresponds to the so-called Gain Improvement criterion, which is based on the theory that the gain of the narrow beam should be greater than the wide beam.
[0217]
Suppose at the estimated gain L wide beam paths selected in the L paths as a target path, the target path set number L D . The selection of the target path depends on the beam selection strategy. For example, the path with the strongest gain can usually be selected in order to obtain the optimal narrow beam. However, it is not limited to this. For example, in order to obtain a spare narrow beam, a beam with the next highest gain may be selected.
[0218]
The following is an example of selecting the strongest path to describe the gain improvement criterion. When scanning a narrow beam, the measured gain of the strongest path is G narrow . The gain similarity can be expressed as
[0219]

[0220]
Among them, η G is the threshold for gain increase, which depends on the difference between the maximum gain of the wide beam and the narrow beam. For example, if the maximum gain of the wide beam is 3dB lower than the maximum gain of the narrow beam, then η G = 2dB can be set . Figure 12 shows an example of a gain improvement criterion. It can be seen that the longest path delay of narrow beam 3 is the same as the direct path under wide beam, but its gain is too low to meet the gain improvement criterion, so it is not expected to find Optimal beam. The narrow beam 2 has a high gain of the strongest path and satisfies the gain improvement criterion, so it is the optimal beam that is expected to be found.
[0221]
According to some aspects, this matching operation can be performed on the receiver side. Therefore, according to some embodiments, the gain threshold is transmitted from the transmitter to the receiver. Alternatively, this matching operation may be performed at, for example, the transmitter end. In this case, the gain threshold is set and stored at the transmitter end, and the transmitter end performs the matching operation based on the estimated path parameters fed back from the receiving end.
[0222]
According to some embodiments, the channel path parameter may also include path delay. In this case, when the difference between the path delay of the channel path corresponding to the second beam and the path delay of the target path corresponding to the first beam is less than the delay threshold, it can be considered that the path corresponding to the second beam The channel path parameters match the channel path parameters corresponding to the first beam.
[0223]
According to some embodiments, the delay threshold is set based on delay estimation accuracy.
[0224]
According to some embodiments, the delay threshold is set by the receiver based on the delay estimation accuracy, or notified by the transmitter to the receiver.
[0225]
This scheme of matching narrow beams and wide beams by estimating the path delay corresponds to the so-called Delay Similarity criterion, which is based on the fact that the delay of the narrow beam should be basically the same as the delay of the wide beam. Based on a theory.
[0226]
Suppose at the estimated delay L wide beam paths selecting a path in the L as the target path, the target path set number L D . Suppose that when scanning a narrow beam, the measured path delay is τ narrow . Delay similarity can be expressed as
[0227]

[0228]
Where η τ is the threshold of the delay difference, for example, it can be set to several times the delay estimation accuracy. Figure 13 shows an example of the delay similarity criterion. It can be seen that narrow beam 2 satisfies the delay similarity criterion, while narrow beam 4 does not.
[0229]
It should be pointed out that in the fast beam management mechanism of the present disclosure, only one of channel path gain matching and channel path delay matching may be performed. And preferably, considering that changes in channel path gains can often reflect the correspondence between wide and narrow beams more accurately, the fast beam management mechanism of the present disclosure can only perform channel path gain matching.
[0230]
On the other hand, according to some embodiments, the fast beam management mechanism of the present disclosure can combine both channel path gain matching and channel path delay matching, thereby enabling more accurate path matching. For example, the channel path delay may be considered first for preliminary selection, and then the channel path gain may be used for further selection.
[0231]
As an example, in an actual system, due to the influence of noise, etc., there may not be a beam that meets the above criteria at the same time in the narrow beam search process. At this time, we select the narrow beam with the largest gain that meets the delay similarity criterion. If no beam meets the delay similarity criterion, the narrow beam with the largest gain is selected. Ideally, each candidate narrow beam is selected with equal probability, so the average number of searches required in the present disclosure is:
[0232]

[0233]
Where N narrow is the number of candidate narrow beams. In an actual system, since there is a certain probability that a beam that meets the above conditions is not found at the same time, the average number of searches may be slightly greater than the above value.
[0234]
Fig. 14 shows a schematic diagram of a fast beam management mechanism according to this embodiment.
[0235]
It can be seen that there are two transmission paths between the base station and the user. The wide beam used has been determined and the path delay and gain under the wide beam have been estimated. Two paths can be distinguished from the delay estimation results, path 1 has a small delay and a large gain, and path 2 has a large delay and a small gain. Take the narrow beam aiming at diameter 1 as an example. When scanning narrow beam 2, it can be seen that the measured delay of the strongest path under the narrow beam is the same as the path 1 delay, and the gain is increased, so we can judge the narrow beam 2 is aligned to path 1, so that the beam scanning process can be terminated without scanning narrow beams 3 and 4, which reduces scanning overhead and delay. Similarly, if a narrow beam is desired to be aligned to diameter 2, when scanning to beam 4, it is found that the delay of measuring the strongest path under the narrow beam is the same as the delay of path 2, and the gain is increased. It is judged that narrow beam 4 is aligned to diameter 2. .
[0236]
The following will further describe the signaling flow of the beam management solution according to this embodiment mainly implemented at the base station side and the terminal equipment side with reference to the accompanying drawings. 15 and 16 particularly show the beam management scheme according to this embodiment implemented in downlink communication, where the base station and the terminal device (user) can respectively correspond to the transmitter end and the receiver end in this embodiment. .
[0237]
Fig. 15 shows the signaling flow of the beam management scheme according to this embodiment mainly implemented in terminal equipment. Among them, the channel path estimation and matching in the solution according to this embodiment are mainly performed on the terminal device end (receiver end).
[0238]
First, complete the initial connection/synchronization between the terminal equipment and the base station in steps 1 and 3. The initial connection/synchronization between the terminal equipment and the base station (including, for example, the base station sends a synchronization signal (Synchronization Signal, SS), the terminal equipment sends a random access signal to the base station) is the first to enable the terminal equipment to communicate with the base station properly. step.
[0239]
The initial connection/synchronization between the terminal device and the base station can be implemented through various implementations known in the art. An exemplary implementation of this initial connection/synchronization is briefly described below.
[0240]
The base station sends a synchronization signal so that the terminal device can obtain the cell frame timing (step 1). The base station may periodically transmit synchronization signals, for example. Generally speaking, the synchronization signal may include a synchronization sequence, which is known to both the base station and the terminal equipment. Moreover, the synchronization signal may be sent in a certain time period or time pattern. For example, the synchronization signal may be sent at a fixed position (for example, a fixed subframe, a time slot, and a symbol position) in a downlink frame. In this way, the terminal device can perform a correlation operation on the signal received in a single subframe with a known synchronization sequence at the center of the carrier, and the position of the correlation peak corresponds to the position of the synchronization signal in the downlink frame. This terminal device can obtain downlink cell synchronization.
[0241]
After obtaining the downlink cell synchronization, the terminal device can receive the cell system information at an appropriate position in the downlink frame. The system information may be periodically broadcast by the base station through a broadcast channel (for example, broadcast channel PBCH, shared channel PDSCH, etc.), and may include information necessary for terminal equipment to access the base station, such as random access related information.
[0242]
After that, in order to obtain uplink cell synchronization, the terminal device needs to perform a random access procedure (step 3). For example, the terminal device can notify the base station of its access behavior by sending a random access preamble (for example, included in MSG-1) to the base station. In an example, after the random access process is successful, the initial connection/synchronization process between the terminal device and the base station can be considered to be finished, and the terminal device can perform subsequent communication with the base station.
[0243]
It should be noted that the channel path parameters under the first beam (wide beam) can be estimated during the initial connection/synchronization process between the terminal device and the base station. According to some embodiments, the channel path parameters under the first beam (wide beam) can be estimated using synchronization signals. For example, as shown in step 2, the terminal device may estimate the channel path parameters under the first beam (wide beam) based on the received synchronization signal, including path delay and gain estimation, where the synchronization signal may be, for example, a PSS signal. The estimated channel path parameters under the first beam are stored in the terminal device.
[0244]
Alternatively, the channel path parameters under the first beam (wide beam) can be estimated after the initial connection/synchronization process between the terminal device and the base station. According to some embodiments, the scanning of the first beam (wide beam) and the estimation of the channel path parameters under the first beam may be performed by means of a reference signal. For example, as shown in step 4, the base station configures the reference signal to perform beam scanning to the user equipment through the first beam, and then as shown in step 5, the terminal device estimates the first beam (wide beam) based on the received reference signal The channel path parameters include path delay and gain estimation, where the reference signal can be, for example, a CSI-RS or UE-RS signal for measurement. The estimated channel path parameters under the first beam are stored in the terminal device.
[0245]
Subsequently, before performing narrow beam scanning, the base station configures matching parameters, including but not limited to delay similarity threshold, gain increase threshold, etc., and informs the terminal device of the configured matching parameters, as shown in step 6. It should be noted that the matching parameter may also be notified to the terminal device in other ways. For example, the matching parameter may be notified to the terminal device in advance in other operations, or the terminal device may be notified in advance by other devices.
[0246]
It should be noted that the matching parameters (including but not limited to the delay similarity threshold, the gain increase threshold, etc.) may also be notified to the terminal equipment by the base station in other processing. For example, the base station can add delay and gain matching parameters in the system broadcast, and notify the terminal equipment in the cell search phase in step 1. In this case, step 6 can be omitted.
[0247]
According to some aspects, the matching parameters configured by the base station may only include the gain increase threshold, and the delay similarity threshold may be set by the terminal device itself. For example, the terminal device may set the delay similarity threshold to be several times the delay estimation accuracy, and the delay estimation accuracy may be calculated as described above. Therefore, the delay similarity threshold may not be transmitted in step 6, which saves communication overhead.
[0248]
Next, the base station scans the second beam (narrow beam) included in the coverage of the first beam, as shown in step 7. The narrow beam scanning here is performed one by one for each second beam.
[0249]
For each scanned narrow beam, the terminal device estimates the channel path parameters corresponding to the narrow beam, including delay and gain, and uses at least one or both of the delay similarity criterion and the gain improvement criterion to match, as in step 8 shown.
[0250]
It should be noted that, as described above, the matching operation can be performed only by the gain of the channel path, so in the operation of step 8, the delay matching operation is optional. According to some aspects, if the matching operation is only performed based on the channel path gain, in the previous estimation results, only the estimation result of the channel path gain can be stored, thereby saving storage resources to a certain extent.
[0251]
If the matching condition is met, it is determined that the desired beam is found, and the terminal device informs the base station to terminate the beam scanning, and thus the estimation of the channel path parameter will stop, as shown in step 9.
[0252]
As an alternative, instead of informing the base station to terminate scanning, the terminal device itself can directly stop the estimation of channel path parameters corresponding to the narrow beam. At this time, although the base station continues to send narrow beams, since the terminal device no longer performs parameter estimation, the terminal device itself can save power, and the communication process is simplified to a certain extent. In this case, step 9 can also be omitted.
[0253]
After determining the desired beam, the terminal device may feed back the beam information of the selected beam to the base station, including beam quality, beam index, etc., as shown in step 10.
[0254]
If the matching condition is not met, the terminal device will receive the next narrow beam and repeat the operations in steps 8-10 for this narrow beam until the desired beam is determined, and the estimation of channel path parameters will stop.
[0255]
As a result, it is possible to cost-effectively determine an appropriate narrow beam and notify the base station, so that the communication beam pair between the base station and the user equipment can be established cost-effectively, reducing the overhead and delay of beam scanning.
[0256]
In the current beam scanning process, the base station mainly scans the beam by itself, and there is no mechanism for the terminal device to actively terminate. However, the scheme of this embodiment can implement such a mechanism, as shown in step 9. Hereinafter, an example in which the terminal device feeds back beam termination information will be briefly described with reference to FIG. 16.
[0257]
In the beam scanning operation, the base station can configure CSI-RS resources for the terminal device to perform beam scanning, and each beam scanning occupies the length of one OFDM symbol in the time domain. According to the existing frame structure, each slot (Slot) contains 14 OFDM symbols, of which there are several OFDM symbols that can be used to place the CSI-RS, that is, several candidate beams can be scanned in each slot. At the end of the time slot, the terminal equipment can generate an uplink signal.
[0258]
In conjunction with the present disclosure, if a beam that meets the matching condition is found during the scanning process, the scanning termination signal is sent to the base station on the uplink channel at the end of the time slot, thereby completing the beam scanning.
[0259]
For example, there are 64 candidate beams (numbered Tx1-Tx64) at the base station, and 8 candidate beams can be scanned in each time slot, and the beam scanning is performed in order. In the existing scheme, the user needs 8 time slots to complete beam scanning. In the present disclosure, for example, if the user finds that the beam Tx21 satisfies the matching condition, the termination signaling is fed back in the third time slot, and only 3 time slots are used to complete the beam scanning, which reduces the delay and overhead of the beam scanning.
[0260]
Fig. 17 shows the signaling flow of the beam management scheme according to this embodiment mainly implemented at the base station. Channel path estimation and matching in the solution according to the embodiment are mainly performed at the base station (transmitter end).
[0261]
Steps 1-5 show the initial synchronization/access between the base station and the terminal equipment and the channel path parameter estimation of the wide beam, which can be implemented as steps 1-5 in FIG. 15 and will not be described in detail here.
[0262]
Subsequently, the terminal device feeds back the estimated channel path parameters corresponding to the wide beam to the base station, as shown in step 6.
[0263]
Next, the base station scans the second beam (narrow beam) included in the coverage of the first beam, as shown in step 7. The narrow beam scanning here is performed one by one for each second beam.
[0264]
For each narrow beam scanned, the terminal equipment estimates the channel path parameters corresponding to the narrow beam, including delay and gain, as shown in step 8, and feeds back to the base station. The feedback content may include those corresponding to the narrow beam. The estimation result of the channel path parameter may also include beam information of the narrow beam, and the beam information includes beam quality, beam index, etc., as shown in step 9.
[0265]
Next, the base station matches the channel path parameters under the first beam obtained by feedback with the channel path parameters under the second beam. The matching can be performed using at least one or both of the delay similarity criterion and the gain improvement criterion. If the matching condition is met, it is determined that the desired beam is found, and the base station terminates the beam scanning, and thus the estimation of the channel path parameters will stop, as shown in step 10.
[0266]
The matching parameters used in the matching can be set by the base station itself, including but not limited to the delay similarity threshold, the gain increase threshold, and so on. It should be noted that the matching parameters may also be notified to the base station in other ways, for example, the terminal equipment is notified in advance by other equipment. According to some aspects, if the delay similarity threshold is set by the terminal device, the delay similarity threshold may be fed back to the base station by the terminal device, for example, in step 6 or 9.
[0267]
It should be noted that, as described above, the matching operation can be performed only by the gain of the channel path, so in the operation of step 10, the delay matching operation is optional. According to some aspects, if the matching operation is only performed based on the channel path gain, only the channel path gain may be fed back from the channel path estimation result fed back from the terminal device, thereby saving communication overhead to a certain extent.
[0268]
If the matching condition is not met, the base station will scan the next narrow beam and repeat the operations in steps 8-10 for this narrow beam until the desired beam is determined, and the estimation of channel path parameters will stop.
[0269]
After determining the desired beam, the base station may inform the terminal device of the selected beam information, for example, the beam index. As a result, it is possible to cost-effectively determine an appropriate narrow beam and notify the base station end, so that the communication beam pair between the base station and the user equipment can be established cost-effectively.
[0270]
It should be pointed out that the examples described above are mainly for the downlink communication link, and its operation can be similarly applied to the uplink communication link. In the uplink communication link, the base station corresponds to the receiver side, and the terminal equipment (user) Corresponds to the transmitter side.
[0271]
Figure 18 shows a signaling flow chart of beam selection in uplink communication.
[0272]
As shown in step 1, the terminal device configures the reference signal to perform uplink beam scanning to the base station through the first beam (wide beam). After receiving the wide beam, the base station can perform channel path parameter estimation under the wide beam, as shown in step 2. This estimate can include path delay and gain estimates.
[0273]
Subsequently, as shown in step 3, the terminal device configures the reference signal, and performs uplink beam scanning to the base station through the second beam (narrow beam) included in the coverage of the first beam. The narrow beam scanning here is performed one by one for each second beam.
[0274]
For each narrow beam scanned, the base station estimates the channel path parameters corresponding to the narrow beam, including delay and gain, and uses at least one or both of the delay similarity criterion and the gain improvement criterion to match, as in step 4 Shown.
[0275]
The matching parameters used in the matching can be set by the base station itself, including but not limited to the delay similarity threshold, the gain increase threshold, and so on. It should be noted that the matching parameters may also be notified to the base station in other ways, for example, the terminal equipment is notified in advance by other equipment. According to some aspects, if the delay similarity threshold is set by the terminal device, the delay similarity threshold may be notified to the base station by the terminal device during the scanning process.
[0276]
It should be noted that, as described above, the matching operation can be performed only by the gain of the channel path, so in the operation of step 4, the delay matching operation is optional. According to some aspects, if the matching operation is only performed based on the channel path gain, in the previous estimation results, only the estimation result of the channel path gain can be stored, thereby saving storage resources to a certain extent.
[0277]
If the matching condition is met, it is determined that the desired beam is found, and the base station notifies the terminal device to terminate beam scanning, as shown in step 5. As an alternative, instead of informing the terminal device to terminate the scan, the base station itself can directly stop the estimation of the channel path parameters corresponding to the narrow beam. In this case, step 5 can also be omitted.
[0278]
After determining the desired beam, the base station may feed back the beam information of the selected beam to the terminal device, including beam quality, beam index, etc., as shown in step 6. Therefore, the terminal device can know the optimal uplink transmission narrow beam.
[0279]
If the matching condition is not met, the terminal device will receive the next narrow beam and repeat the operations in steps 3-6 for this narrow beam until the desired beam is determined, and the estimation of channel path parameters will stop.
[0280]
In the technical solution according to this embodiment, in the beam training, each scanned narrow beam (second beam) is estimated, matched and fed back. Compared with the current technology, the feedback information can be reduced. For example, in wide beam measurement, the number of feedback paths can be configured by the base station (at least 1); in narrow beam measurement, only the strongest path can be fed back, thereby reducing feedback information. Further, the path gain in the feedback channel path parameters may be only the amplitude of the path gain, or even the feedback channel path parameters may only have the path gain, so that the feedback information can be further reduced. This saves communication overhead.
[0281]
As a result, the fast beam management mechanism proposed in the present disclosure can reduce the overhead and delay of narrow beam scanning, and the performance loss is small relative to the scheme of scanning all candidate beams.
[0282]
The simulation results of the fast beam management mechanism based on channel path parameters according to embodiments of the present disclosure are described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.
[0283]
The simulation condition is that the channel includes a direct path and a reflection path, and the base station and the user are equipped with 16 and 4 antennas respectively. The channel delay is expanded to 300ns, the OFDM size is 2048, and the subcarrier spacing is 120kHz. The wide beam width is about 30 degrees and covers 5 narrow beams with a width of about 7.5 degrees. The DFT codebook is used for beamforming, and 64 reference signals with an interval of 6 subcarriers are used for path delay and gain estimation. Contrast with the exhaustive search algorithm that searches all candidate beams and selects the highest gain.
[0284]
Figure 19 shows the simulation results of obtaining the optimal beam probability under different signal-to-noise ratios. It can be seen that the probability of obtaining the optimal beam in the disclosed method is better than exhaustive search under the low signal-to-noise ratio, and the probability of obtaining the optimal beam in the disclosed method is over 80% under the high signal-to-noise ratio. It should be noted that the optimal beam is not obtained in time, but the gain improvement criterion ensures that the technical solution of this embodiment can obtain sufficient beamforming gain.
[0285]
Figure 20 shows the simulation results of achievable rates under different signal-to-noise ratios. It can be seen that, because the technical solution of this embodiment obtains the optimal beam with a greater probability, and even if the optimal beam is not obtained, it can ensure a sufficiently high beamforming gain, so the achievable rate is lost compared with the exhaustive search algorithm. Extremely small.
[0286]
Figure 21 shows the average number of beam searches under different signal-to-noise ratios. It can be seen SNR increases, the average number of searches of the disclosed methods decreases when the SNR is sufficiently high, close to the lower limit of the probability theories proven technical solution of the present embodiment can effectively reduce the overhead beam searching And delay.
[0287]
Second embodiment
[0288]
The second embodiment of the present disclosure is described in detail below. The second embodiment of the present disclosure mainly relates to an improved beam reciprocity determination, which uses the matching condition between the channel path parameters under the uplink beam and the channel path parameters under the downlink beam to determine the relationship between the uplink and downlink beams. Whether to meet reciprocity.
[0289]
Beam reciprocity can also be referred to as beam symmetry, which can include the beam symmetry of each of the base station and the terminal equipment, also known as the transceiver beam symmetry, which represents the communication device on one side of the communication link ( For example, the strongest receiving beam and the strongest transmitting beam of the base station or terminal equipment are the same. According to the beam reciprocity, the uplink receiving (transmitting) beam can be determined from the downlink transmitting (receiving) beam. The principle lies in the reciprocity of the departure angle/arrival angle of the transmission path of the uplink and downlink channels, thereby simplifying the beam determination process.
[0290]
In TDD systems, reciprocity usually exists. In the FDD system, because the uplink and downlink carrier frequencies are different, it is difficult to determine whether beam reciprocity exists. The simplest way to determine the beam reciprocity is to determine it based on the uplink and downlink carrier frequency intervals. If the interval is small, the reciprocity is considered valid; if the interval is large, the reciprocity is considered invalid. Another method is to measure the beam reciprocity in the cell when the infrastructure is deployed. However, the above methods are static, that is, the beam reciprocity is the same for all users at any time.
[0291]
This embodiment proposes an improved beam/channel reciprocity determination scheme, which specifically determines the beam/channel reciprocity by using channel path parameters corresponding to the beam (which may include channel path gain and/or channel path delay) The principle is that if the channel transmission path departure angle/arrival angle has reciprocity, the corresponding transmission path of the uplink and downlink channels will experience similar channel conditions, so the path parameters of the uplink and downlink channels should be similar. Therefore, it can be judged whether the uplink and downlink channels/beams have reciprocity by judging whether the channel path parameters of the uplink and downlink channels match.
[0292]
The technical solution of this embodiment is that one side of the wireless communication system (transmitter end/receiver end) uses a beam to transmit to the other side (receiver end/transmitter end) of the wireless communication system, and uses the same beam Receive the signal from the other side, estimate the respective channel path parameters in the transmission and reception conditions, and determine whether there is channel/beam reciprocity by matching the estimated two channel path parameters.
[0293]
According to some embodiments, an electronic device for the receiver side of a wireless communication system is proposed. The electronic device may include a processing circuit that may be configured to estimate the receiving channel based on a reference signal transmitted using the second beam as the transmitting beam from the transmitter end of the wireless communication system and receiving the first beam as the receiving beam Path parameters; and using the first beam as a transmitting beam to transmit a reference signal to the transmitter end, wherein the transmitter end uses the second beam as a receiving beam to receive the reference signal so that the transmission channel path parameters can be estimated . Wherein, the beam reciprocity between the transmitter end and the receiver end is determined based on the receiving channel path parameter and the transmitting channel path parameter.
[0294]
According to some embodiments, an electronic device for the transmitter side of a wireless communication system is proposed. The electronic device may include a processing circuit that may be configured to use the second beam as a transmitting beam to transmit the reference signal to the receiver of the wireless communication system, wherein the receiver uses the first beam as the receiving beam to receive The reference signal enables the transmission channel path parameters to be estimated; the reception channel path parameters are estimated based on the reference signal transmitted by the first beam as the transmission beam from the receiver end of the wireless communication system and received by the second beam as the reception beam And wherein, the beam reciprocity between the transmitter end and the receiver end is determined based on the receive channel path parameter and the transmit channel path parameter.
[0295]
According to some embodiments, the receiving channel path parameters may include the receiving channel path parameters of one or more channel paths. According to some embodiments, the transmission channel path parameters may include respective transmission channel path parameters of one or more channel paths.
[0296]
According to some aspects, the channel path parameter estimation in this embodiment may be performed as described above with reference to the first embodiment, for example, may be performed based on the transmitted reference signal and/or synchronization signal, which will not be described in detail here.
[0297]
According to some aspects, the determination of beam reciprocity in this embodiment can determine whether there is beam reciprocity by judging whether the receiving channel path parameter and the transmitting channel path parameter match.
[0298]
According to some aspects, each of the receiving channel path parameter and the transmitting channel path parameter may include at least one of the channel path gain and the channel path delay as described above, and the estimation method may also be performed as described above. This will not be described in detail. The embodiments of the present disclosure can follow the gain similarity criterion and the delay similarity criterion to determine whether the respective channel path gains and channel path delays match.
[0299]
According to some embodiments, the receive channel path parameters and the transmit channel path parameters may include channel path delays. Wherein, when the difference between the path delay of the receiving channel and the path delay of the transmitting channel is less than the delay threshold, there is beam reciprocity between the transmitter end and the receiver end.
[0300]
According to some embodiments, the receive channel path parameter and the transmit channel path parameter may include channel path gain. Wherein, when the difference between the path gain of the receiving channel and the path gain of the transmitting channel is less than the gain threshold, there is beam reciprocity between the transmitter end and the receiver end.
[0301]
Specifically, downlink channel estimation is provided to give a gain of path delays and delay and gain similarity similarity criterion may be expressed as
[0302]
1≤l≤L
[0303]
1≤l≤L
[0304]
Among them β τ and β G are the thresholds of delay similarity and gain similarity. It is noted that, due to different factors such as uplink and downlink transmission power, gain , and should be corrected in advance, so that both substantially in the same order of magnitude. A downlink power ratio, for example, uplink power large 10dB, it should be pre-reduced 10dB.
[0305]
It should be pointed out that in the operation of determining beam reciprocity according to this embodiment, the determination may be made based on channel delay alone, that is to say, whether beam reciprocity exists is judged according to the delay similarity criterion. On the other hand, according to some embodiments, the beam reciprocity determination of the present disclosure can combine both similar channel path gains and similar channel path delays, thereby being able to determine reciprocity more accurately.
[0306]
According to some aspects, the reciprocity determination operation according to this embodiment can be performed on either side (receiver end/transmitter end) in the wireless communication system, and the determination result (beam reciprocity) can be notified after the determination The other side (transmitter end/receiver end).
[0307]
According to some embodiments, the processing circuit of the electronic device may include various units to implement various embodiments according to the present disclosure. Of course, the processing circuit can also be implemented in other ways, and is not limited to this.
[0308]
FIG. 22A shows an exemplary implementation of an electronic device 2000 for a receiver end according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. In an embodiment, the electronic device 2000 may be implemented as a receiver or a part thereof, or may be implemented as a device or a part of the device for controlling the receiver or otherwise related to the receiver.
[0309]
The electronic device 2000 shown in FIG. 22A may include a processing circuit 2001, which may refer to various implementations of a digital circuit system, an analog circuit system, or a mixed signal (combination of analog signal and digital signal) circuit system that performs functions in a computing system. The processing circuit may include, for example, circuits such as integrated circuits (ICs), application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), parts or circuits of individual processor cores, entire processor cores, individual processors, such as field programmable arrays (FPGAs) ) Programmable hardware devices, and/or systems including multiple processors.
[0310]
In an embodiment, the processing circuit 2001 at least includes an estimation unit 2002. The various operations described below may be implemented by the unit 2002 or other possible units.
[0311]
In an embodiment, the estimating unit 2002 may estimate the receiving channel path parameters based on the reference signal transmitted using the second beam as the transmitting beam from the transmitter end of the wireless communication system received by using the first beam as the receiving beam. The corresponding estimation processing can be implemented as described in the first embodiment, or implemented in other ways known in the art, and will not be described in detail here.
[0312]
In an embodiment, the processing circuit may further include a transmitting unit 2003, which may use the first beam as a transmitting beam to transmit a reference signal to the transmitter.
[0313]
The processing circuit may also optionally include a determining unit 2004, which may determine the beam reciprocity between the transmitter end and the receiver end based on the receiving channel path parameter and the transmitting channel path parameter. According to some aspects, the determining unit may include a comparing unit that compares the receiving channel path parameter and the transmitting channel path parameter, for example, calculating the difference between the two as described above. If the difference is less than the threshold, it can be determined that there is beam reciprocity.
[0314]
It should be pointed out that such a determination unit 2004 is not necessarily located in the single processing path, and may also be located outside the processing circuit or outside the electronic device. Therefore, the determining unit 2004 is shown with a dotted line in the drawing, and the corresponding processing will be described in detail below.
[0315]
According to some embodiments, the electronic device may further include a receiving unit that receives a reference signal transmitted using the second beam as a transmitting beam from a transmitter end of the wireless communication system when the first beam is used as a receiving beam. Such a receiving unit may be located in the processing circuit, in the estimation unit, or in other positions of the electronic device. Additionally, the electronic device may also include a receiving unit for receiving any information about the channel path parameter estimation result or the beam reciprocity determination result from the transmitter.
[0316]
The electronic device 2000 may further include, for example, a communication unit for communicating with a transmitter and a memory for storing related information. The communication unit and the memory can be implemented as the communication unit 604 or the memory 605 in FIG. 6, or can be implemented in other ways known in the art, and will not be described in detail here.
[0317]
FIG. 22B shows an exemplary implementation of an electronic device used at a transmitter end according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The electronic device 2010 shown in FIG. 22B may have a processing circuit 2011, and the processing circuit 2011 may be implemented in various ways as described above.
[0318]
In one embodiment, the processing circuit may be implemented substantially as the processing circuit 2001 shown in FIG. 22A. For example, each unit included in the processing circuit can be implemented as the corresponding unit shown in FIG. 22A, and will not be described in detail here.
[0319]
It should be noted that the above-mentioned units are only logical modules divided according to the specific functions they implement, and are not used to limit specific implementation manners. For example, they may be implemented in software, hardware, or a combination of software and hardware. In actual implementation, each of the aforementioned units may be implemented as an independent physical entity, or may also be implemented by a single entity (for example, a processor (CPU or DSP, etc.), an integrated circuit, etc.).
[0320]
It should be noted that the arrangement of the above-mentioned units is only exemplary, and not limited to the above-mentioned situation. For example, considering that the estimation process can also be distributed on both sides of the receiver and the transmitter, part of the functions in the estimation unit at the receiver side can also be distributed at least partly on the transmitter side by receiving feedback information from the receiver. Further calculations. In addition, for example, the transmitting and receiving units at the transmitter end may also be arranged at the receiver end.
[0321]
It should be noted that the aforementioned transmitter end and receiver end may correspond to parties in the wireless communication system. For example, the transmitter end may correspond to a base station, and the receiver end may correspond to a user equipment. Such an operation particularly corresponds to downlink communication transmission. For example, the transmitter end may correspond to the user equipment, and the receiver end may correspond to the base station, and such an operation particularly corresponds to uplink communication transmission.
[0322]
Figure 23 shows an example that satisfies the delay similarity and gain similarity criteria. As shown in the figure, the path gains and delays of the two paths in the downlink channel are matched with the path gains and delays of the corresponding paths in the uplink channel, so the uplink and downlink channels are reciprocal.
[0323]
Figure 24 shows the signaling flow chart of beam reciprocity measurement. The determination of reciprocity is mainly carried out at the base station (transmitter end).
[0324]
Steps 1 and 3 show the initial synchronization/access between the base station and the terminal equipment, which can be implemented as described in the first embodiment, or can be performed in other ways known in the art. No more detailed description.
[0325]
The downlink channel path parameters from the base station to the terminal equipment can be estimated during the initial synchronization/access process between the base station and the terminal equipment, as shown in step 2. In this case, this estimation is based on a synchronization signal, which may be, for example, a PSS signal. The estimated downlink channel path parameters are stored in the terminal equipment.
[0326]
In the process of random access, the base station can estimate the uplink channel path parameters according to the received reference signal, as shown in step 4.
[0327]
Preferably, the base station and the terminal equipment can use wide beams for their respective reception and transmission, which has strong tolerance. Therefore, the base station transmission beam used by the base station broadcasted by the user searched for the synchronization signal and the base station receive during the random access process The receiving beam of the base station when the user signal is received usually corresponds to the same beam direction, and the user receiving beam when the terminal device side receives the broadcast signal and the user transmitting beam received by the base station when performing random access also generally correspond to the same beam direction.
[0328]
Next, after successfully completing random access, the user can feed back the downlink channel path parameters estimated in step 2 to the base station through step 7.
[0329]
According to some embodiments, the downlink channel path parameters and the uplink channel path parameters may also be estimated after the initial synchronization/access between the base station and the terminal device. In this case, the downlink channel path parameters from the base station to the terminal equipment and the uplink channel path parameters from the terminal equipment to the base station can be performed with reference signals. For example, as shown in step 5, the base station configures a reference signal, and then as shown in step 6, the terminal equipment estimates downlink channel path parameters based on the received reference signal, including path delay and gain estimation, where the reference signal may be, for example, CSI-RS or UE-RS signal. The estimated downlink channel path parameters are stored in the terminal equipment. On the other hand, although not shown, the terminal device can configure the uplink reference signal to transmit the uplink reference signal to the base station, whereby the base station estimates uplink channel path parameters based on the received reference signal, including path delay and gain estimation.
[0330]
Preferably, the base station and the terminal equipment can use wide beams for receiving and transmitting the respective reference signals, which has strong tolerance. Therefore, the base station transmitting beam corresponding to the strongest downlink reference signal received by the terminal equipment and the base station receiving The base station receiving beam with the strongest user signal usually corresponds to the same beam direction, and the user transmitting beam corresponding to the strongest reference signal of the terminal device received by the base station is the same as the user used when the terminal device receives the strongest base station reference signal. The receiving beam usually corresponds to the same beam direction.
[0331]
According to some embodiments, the uplink channel path parameter estimation and the downlink channel path parameter estimation performed after the initial synchronization/access described above may be used as the uplink channel path parameter estimation and the downlink channel path parameter estimation performed during the initial synchronization/access. Supplement to carry out.
[0332]
For example, it can be judged whether the channel path parameter estimated in the initial synchronization/access process is accurate, and if it is not accurate enough, an alternative channel path parameter estimation can be performed, such as a channel path parameter estimation based on a reference signal.
[0333]
As an example, if the result of the downlink channel path parameter estimation performed by broadcasting the synchronization signal as described above is not accurate enough, the downlink channel path parameter estimation based on the reference signal may be further performed, as shown in steps 5 and 6. As an example, if the result of channel path parameter estimation performed in the random access process as described above is not accurate enough, the aforementioned uplink channel path parameter estimation based on the reference signal may be further performed.
[0334]
Whether the result of channel path parameter estimation is accurate can be judged based on various conditions, for example, a threshold can be set and the result can be judged to be accurate when the result is lower than the threshold. Of course, it can also be judged in other ways, which will not be described in detail here.
[0335]
Subsequently, the terminal device feeds back to the base station, and the content of the feedback may include the estimation result of the downlink channel path parameter, as shown in step 7.
[0336]
Next, the base station matches the downlink channel path parameters obtained by the feedback with the estimated uplink channel path parameters. The matching can be performed using at least one of the delay similarity criterion and the gain similarity criterion. As shown in step 8, if the matching condition is met, it is determined that there is beam reciprocity, and the terminal device is notified of the beam reciprocity, as shown in step 9.
[0337]
It should be noted that the beam reciprocity determination performed in step 8 above can also be performed on the terminal device side. For example, the base station can inform the terminal device of the estimated uplink channel path parameters of the base station, thereby performing reciprocity at the terminal device. It is determined, and the terminal device notifies the base station of the result of the reciprocity determination. In this case, the terminal equipment will not need to feed back the downlink channel path parameters to the base station.
[0338]
The matching parameters used in the matching can be set by the base station itself, including but not limited to the delay similarity threshold, the gain similarity threshold, and the like. It should be noted that the matching parameters may also be notified to the base station in other ways, for example, the terminal equipment is notified in advance by other equipment. According to some aspects, if the delay similarity threshold is set by the terminal device, the delay similarity threshold may be notified by the terminal device to the base station, for example, during the feedback process.
[0339]
It should be noted that, as described above, the matching operation can be performed only by the channel path delay, so in the operation of step 8, the beam reciprocity can be determined based only on the channel path delay. According to some aspects, if the matching operation is only performed based on the channel path delay, in the previous estimation result, only the channel path delay estimation result can be stored and fed back, thereby saving storage resources and communication overhead to a certain extent.
[0340]
It should be pointed out that the examples described above are mainly for the downlink communication link, and its operation can be similarly applied to the uplink communication link. In the uplink communication link, the base station corresponds to the receiver side, and the terminal equipment (user) Corresponds to the transmitter side.
[0341]
The reciprocity measurement technology proposed in the present disclosure can efficiently determine the beam reciprocity with higher accuracy. In particular, the reciprocity measurement technology proposed in the present disclosure does not need to use narrow beams for scanning as in the prior art. It only needs to use wide beam scanning for both the sender and receiver and the uplink and downlink channel path parameters to determine whether it is in the narrow beam (used for data communication). The reciprocity under the beam) can significantly reduce the overhead of reciprocity measurement while ensuring accuracy.
[0342]
Moreover, the technical solution of the present disclosure can enable the beam reciprocity to be explicitly notified to the user as signaling.
[0343]
The third embodiment
[0344]
On the other hand, based on the above recognition, an improved beam management mechanism is also proposed. The basic principle of the beam management mechanism is to estimate the time-domain path parameters of the channels under each beam, and to select a specific transmission beam for subsequent operations based on the estimated time-domain path parameters.
[0345]
According to an embodiment, the time domain path parameter of the channel may include the path gain in the time domain of the channel, and preferably may be the path gain amplitude.
[0346]
According to an embodiment, there is provided an electronic device for a receiver end of a wireless communication system, including a processing circuit configured to: for the transmitter end of the wireless communication system, a plurality of transmit beams used for transmitting reference signals Each of them estimates the path gain amplitude in the time domain of the channel path from the transmitter to the receiver corresponding to the transmission beam based on the reference signal transmitted via the transmission beam. Wherein, a specific transmission beam of the plurality of transmission beams is determined based on the estimated path gain amplitude in the time domain.
[0347]
According to an embodiment, there is provided an electronic device for a transmitter end of a wireless communication system, including a processing circuit configured to: send to the receiver end of the wireless communication system via each of a plurality of transmit beams Transmit the reference signal. Wherein, for each of the plurality of transmission beams, the path gain in the time domain of the channel path from the transmitter to the receiver corresponding to the transmission beam is estimated based on the reference signal transmitted via the transmission beam Amplitude. Wherein, a specific transmission beam of the plurality of transmission beams is determined based on the estimated path gain amplitude in the time domain.
[0348]
According to an embodiment, among the multiple transmission beams, the path gain amplitude in the time domain of the channel path covered by the specific transmission beam is the largest.
[0349]
According to an embodiment, the path gain amplitude in the time domain is the amplitude of the time domain impulse response of the channel path.
[0350]
The parameters of the channel path in the time domain involved in this embodiment, especially the path gain amplitude of the channel path in the time domain, can be performed as in the first embodiment, and will not be described in detail here.
[0351]
In addition, the determination of the specific transmission beam may be performed at the receiver end, and the receiver end notifies the transmitter end of the beam information of the determined transmission beam. Alternatively, the determination of a specific transmit beam can also be performed at the transmitter, where the transmitter determines the channel time domain parameters that are estimated from the feedback from the receiver, and uses the determined beam information of the transmit beam, such as beam index, etc. Inform the receiver.
[0352]
Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to a method for the receiver side of a wireless communication system. According to some embodiments, the method includes estimating the transmitter corresponding to the second beam based on the reference signal from the transmitter of the wireless communication system transmitted via at least one second beam included in the coverage of the first beam Channel path parameters to the receiver. Wherein, a specific second beam of the at least one second beam may be selected based on the estimated channel path parameter, the estimated channel path parameter corresponding to the specific second beam and the channel corresponding to the first beam Path parameters match.
[0353]
Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to a method for a transmitter side of a wireless communication system. According to some embodiments, the method may include transmitting a reference signal to the receiver end of the wireless communication system via at least one second beam included in the coverage of the first beam. Wherein, a specific second beam of the at least one second beam may be selected based on the estimated channel path parameter from the transmitter to the receiver corresponding to the second beam, which corresponds to the specific second beam The estimated channel path parameter matches the channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam.
[0354]
Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to a method for the receiver side of a wireless communication system. According to some embodiments, the method may include estimating the receiving channel path parameter based on a reference signal transmitted using the second beam as the transmitting beam from the transmitter end of the wireless communication system, which is received using the first beam as the receiving beam; and The first beam is used as a transmitting beam to transmit a reference signal to the transmitter. Wherein, the transmitter end uses the second beam as a receiving beam to receive the reference signal, so that the transmission channel path parameters can be estimated. Wherein, the beam reciprocity between the transmitter end and the receiver end may be determined based on the receiving channel path parameter and the transmitting channel path parameter.
[0355]
Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to a method for a transmitter side of a wireless communication system. According to some embodiments, the method may include using the second beam as a transmitting beam to transmit a reference signal to a receiver end of the wireless communication system, wherein the receiver end uses the first beam as a receiving beam to receive the reference signal such that The transmission channel path parameters can be estimated; based on the reference signal transmitted with the first beam as the transmission beam from the receiver end of the wireless communication system received by the second beam as the reception beam, the reception channel path parameters are estimated. Wherein, the beam reciprocity between the transmitter end and the receiver end may be determined based on the receiving channel path parameter and the transmitting channel path parameter.
[0356]
Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to a method for the receiver side of a wireless communication system. According to some embodiments, the method may include: for each of a plurality of transmission beams used to transmit a reference signal at the transmitter end of the wireless communication system, estimating the transmission beam corresponding to the transmission beam based on the reference signal transmitted via the transmission beam The path gain amplitude in the time domain of the channel path from the transmitter to the receiver. Wherein, a specific transmission beam among the multiple transmission beams may be determined based on the estimated path gain amplitude in the time domain.
[0357]
Another aspect of the present disclosure relates to a method for a transmitter side of a wireless communication system. According to some embodiments, the method may include transmitting the reference signal to the receiver end of the wireless communication system via each of the plurality of transmit beams. Wherein, for each of the multiple transmit beams, the path in the time domain of the channel path from the transmitter to the receiver corresponding to the transmit beam can be estimated based on the reference signal transmitted via the transmit beam Gain amplitude. Wherein, a specific transmission beam among the multiple transmission beams may be determined based on the estimated path gain amplitude in the time domain.
[0358]
It should be noted that these method embodiments can be implemented in any manner. For example, it can be implemented in any suitable manner by corresponding equipment, circuits, devices, etc. in the receiver and/or transmitter. The implementation of the method will not be elaborated here.
[0359]
It should be understood that the operations or functions of these electronic devices can be combined with each other to achieve more or less operations or functions than described. The operation steps of each method can also be combined with each other in any appropriate order, so as to similarly achieve more or less operations than described.
[0360]
It should be noted that the above application examples are only exemplary. The embodiments of the present disclosure can also be executed in any other suitable manner in the above application examples, and the advantageous effects obtained by the embodiments of the present disclosure can still be achieved. Moreover, the embodiments of the present disclosure can also be applied to other similar application examples, and the advantageous effects obtained by the embodiments of the present disclosure can still be achieved. It should be understood that the machine-readable storage medium or the machine-executable instructions in the program product according to the embodiments of the present disclosure may be configured to perform operations corresponding to the above-mentioned device and method embodiments. When referring to the above-mentioned device and method embodiments, the embodiments of the machine-readable storage medium or program product are clear to those skilled in the art, so the description will not be repeated. Machine-readable storage media and program products for carrying or including the above-mentioned machine-executable instructions also fall within the scope of the present disclosure. Such storage media may include, but are not limited to, floppy disks, optical disks, magneto-optical disks, memory cards, memory sticks, and so on.
[0361]
In addition, it should be understood that the aforementioned series of processing and devices can also be implemented by software and/or firmware. In the case of implementation by software and/or firmware, a computer with a dedicated hardware structure, such as a general-purpose personal computer 1300 shown in FIG. 25, is installed from a storage medium or network to the program that constitutes the software. The computer is installed with various programs. When, can perform various functions and so on. FIG. 25 is a block diagram showing an example structure of a personal computer as an information processing apparatus that can be adopted in the embodiment of the present disclosure. In an example, the personal computer may correspond to the aforementioned exemplary terminal device according to the present disclosure.
[0362]
In FIG. 25, a central processing unit (CPU) 1301 performs various processes in accordance with a program stored in a read only memory (ROM) 1302 or a program loaded from a storage portion 1308 to a random access memory (RAM) 1303. In the RAM 1303, data required when the CPU 1301 executes various processing and the like is also stored as necessary.
[0363]
The CPU 1301, ROM 1302, and RAM 1303 are connected to each other via a bus 1304. The input/output interface 1305 is also connected to the bus 1304.
[0364]
The following components are connected to the input/output interface 1305: input part 1306, including keyboard, mouse, etc.; output part 1307, including display, such as cathode ray tube (CRT), liquid crystal display (LCD), etc., and speakers, etc.; storage part 1308 , Including hard disks, etc.; and communication part 1309, including network interface cards such as LAN cards, modems, etc. The communication section 1309 performs communication processing via a network such as the Internet.
[0365]
The driver 1310 is also connected to the input/output interface 1305 as required. Removable media 1311 such as magnetic disks, optical disks, magneto-optical disks, semiconductor memories, etc. are mounted on the drive 1310 as required, so that the computer programs read from them are installed in the storage portion 1308 as required.
[0366]
In the case of implementing the above-mentioned series of processing by software, a program constituting the software is installed from a network such as the Internet or a storage medium such as a removable medium 1311.
[0367]
Those skilled in the art should understand that this storage medium is not limited to the removable medium 1311 shown in FIG. 25 in which the program is stored and distributed separately from the device to provide the program to the user. Examples of removable media 1311 include magnetic disks (including floppy disks (registered trademarks)), optical disks (including compact disk read-only memory (CD-ROM) and digital versatile disks (DVD)), magneto-optical disks (including mini disks (MD) (registered trademarks) )) and semiconductor memory. Alternatively, the storage medium may be a ROM 1302, a hard disk contained in the storage portion 1308, etc., in which programs are stored and distributed to users together with the device containing them.
[0368]
The technology of the present disclosure can be applied to various products. For example, the base station mentioned in this disclosure may be implemented as any type of evolved node B (gNB), such as macro gNB and small gNB. The small gNB may be a gNB that covers a cell smaller than a macro cell, such as pico gNB, micro gNB, and home (femto) gNB. Instead, the base station may be implemented as any other type of base station, such as NodeB and Base Transceiver Station (BTS). The base station may include: a main body (also referred to as base station equipment) configured to control wireless communication; and one or more remote radio heads (Remote Radio Head, RRH) arranged in a different place from the main body. In addition, various types of terminals to be described below can all operate as base stations by temporarily or semi-persistently performing base station functions.
[0369]
For example, the terminal device mentioned in the present disclosure is also called user equipment in some examples, and can be implemented as a mobile terminal (such as a smart phone, a tablet personal computer (PC), a notebook PC, a portable game terminal, a portable/dongle) Mobile routers and digital cameras) or in-vehicle terminals (such as car navigation equipment). The user equipment may also be implemented as a terminal (also referred to as a machine type communication (MTC) terminal) that performs machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. In addition, the user equipment may be a wireless communication module (such as an integrated circuit module including a single chip) installed on each of the aforementioned terminals.
[0370]
Hereinafter, an example according to the present disclosure will be described with reference to FIGS. 26 to 29.

Claims
[Claim 1]
An electronic device used at the receiver side of a wireless communication system, comprising a processing circuit configured to: according to at least one first beam from the transmitter side of the wireless communication system via at least one first beam included in the coverage of a first beam For the reference signal transmitted by the two beams, the channel path parameters from the transmitter to the receiver corresponding to the second beam are estimated, and wherein a specific first beam in the at least one second beam is selected based on the estimated channel path parameters Two beams, the estimated channel path parameter corresponding to the specific second beam matches the channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam.
[Claim 2]
The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to estimate corresponding to the first beam based on a reference signal or a synchronization signal transmitted via the first beam from the transmitter The channel path parameters.
[Claim 3]
The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the channel path parameter includes a path gain, and wherein the difference between the path gain of the channel path corresponding to the second beam and the path gain of the target path corresponding to the first beam When it is greater than the gain threshold, it can be considered that the channel path parameter corresponding to the second beam matches the channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam.
[Claim 4]
The electronic device according to claim 3, wherein the channel path parameter includes the magnitude of the path gain in the time domain.
[Claim 5]
The electronic device according to claim 3, wherein the gain threshold is set based on the difference between the maximum path gain corresponding to the first beam and the maximum path gain corresponding to the second beam.
[Claim 6]
The electronic device according to claim 3, wherein the gain threshold is transmitted from the transmitter section to the receiver end.
[Claim 7]
The electronic device according to claim 1 or 3, wherein the channel path parameter includes a path delay, and wherein, when the path delay of the channel path corresponding to the second beam is compared with the target path corresponding to the first beam When the path delay difference is less than the delay threshold, it can be considered that the channel path parameter corresponding to the second beam matches the channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam.
[Claim 8]
The electronic device according to claim 7, wherein the delay threshold is set based on delay estimation accuracy.
[Claim 9]
8. The electronic device according to claim 7, wherein the delay threshold is set by the receiver end based on the delay estimation accuracy, or the transmitter end informs the receiver end.
[Claim 10]
The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the reference signal includes one or more of CSI-RS, UE-RS, SRS, and DMRS.
[Claim 11]
The electronic device according to claim 2, wherein the synchronization signal includes one or both of PSS or SSS.
[Claim 12]
The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the estimated channel path parameter corresponding to the specific second beam or the beam information of the specific second beam is fed back to the transmitter end.
[Claim 13]
The electronic device according to claim 12, wherein the beam information includes at least one or both of beam index and beam quality.
[Claim 14]
The electronic device according to claim 2, wherein the estimated channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam is fed back to the transmitter.
[Claim 15]
The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the first beam is determined by a beam scanning operation from the transmitter end to the receiver end in the first beam set.
[Claim 16]
The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the processing circuit is configured to: after selecting the specific second beam, stop estimating channel path parameters corresponding to the remaining second beams.
[Claim 17]
The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the processing circuit is configured to: after selecting the specific second beam, notify the transmitter to stop transmitting the reference signal via other second beams.
[Claim 18]
The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the processing circuit is configured to: estimate the channel state on the communication resource carrying the reference signal based on the reference signal from the transmitter; and use the estimated communication resource Channel state, estimate channel path parameters.
[Claim 19]
The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the reference signal is distributed on a communication resource in a first frequency domain range of the communication system, and the frequency domain resource of the communication system is divided to include the first frequency domain. Multiple orthogonal frequency domains of the domain range.
[Claim 20]
The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the reference signal is distributed at predetermined intervals in the frequency domain, and the predetermined interval is based on the maximum delay spread of the channel and adjacent communication resources in the communication system The frequency domain interval is determined.
[Claim 21]
The electronic device according to claim 18, wherein a reference signal distributed in at least one time slot is used to jointly estimate the channel state of the subcarrier containing the reference signal.
[Claim 22]
An electronic device used at the transmitter side of a wireless communication system, comprising a processing circuit configured to: receive to the wireless communication system via at least one second beam included in the coverage of the first beam The terminal transmits a reference signal, and wherein, based on the estimated channel path parameter from the transmitter to the receiver corresponding to the second beam, a specific second beam of the at least one second beam is selected, corresponding to The estimated channel path parameter of the specific second beam matches the channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam.
[Claim 23]
The electronic device according to claim 22, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to: compare the received channel path parameter of the second beam with the channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam to select the Specific second beam.
[Claim 24]
The electronic device according to claim 22, wherein the channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam is based on a reference signal or synchronization signal transmitted via the first beam from the transmitter to the receiver. The signal is estimated and the channel path parameters corresponding to the first beam are provided from the receiver end to the transmitter end.
[Claim 25]
The electronic device according to claim 22, wherein the beam information of the specific second beam is provided to the receiver end.
[Claim 26]
The electronic device according to claim 22, wherein the processing circuit is configured to: after the specific second beam is selected, stop transmitting the reference signal via other second beams.
[Claim 27]
The electronic device according to claim 22, wherein the channel path parameter includes a path gain, and wherein the difference between the path gain of the channel path corresponding to the second beam and the path gain of the target path corresponding to the first beam When it is greater than the gain threshold, it can be considered that the channel path parameter corresponding to the second beam matches the channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam.
[Claim 28]
The electronic device according to claim 22 or 27, wherein the channel path parameter includes a path delay, and wherein when the path delay of the channel path corresponding to the second beam is compared with the target path corresponding to the first beam When the path delay difference is less than the delay threshold, it can be considered that the channel path parameter corresponding to the second beam matches the channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam.
[Claim 29]
An electronic device used at the receiver end of a wireless communication system, comprising a processing circuit configured to: use a second beam from the transmitter end of the wireless communication system based on receiving the first beam as the receiving beam As the reference signal transmitted by the transmitting beam, estimate the receiving channel path parameters; and using the first beam as the transmitting beam to transmit the reference signal to the transmitter, wherein the transmitter uses the second beam as the receiving beam to receive the The reference signal enables the transmission channel path parameters to be estimated; wherein the beam reciprocity between the transmitter end and the receiver end is determined based on the reception channel path parameters and the transmission channel path parameters.
[Claim 30]
An electronic device used at a transmitter end of a wireless communication system, comprising a processing circuit configured to: use a second beam as a transmitting beam to transmit a reference signal to a receiver end of the wireless communication system, wherein the receiving The machine end uses the first beam as the receive beam to receive the reference signal, so that the transmission channel path parameters can be estimated; based on receiving the second beam as the receive beam, the receiver from the wireless communication system uses the first beam as the Estimating a receiving channel path parameter for a reference signal transmitted by transmitting a beam; and wherein the beam reciprocity between the transmitter end and the receiver end is determined based on the receiving channel path parameter and the transmitting channel path parameter.
[Claim 31]
The electronic device according to claim 29 or 30, wherein the receiving channel path parameter includes the receiving channel path parameter of one or more channel paths; and wherein the transmitting channel path parameter includes one or more channel paths The respective transmit channel path parameters.
[Claim 32]
The electronic device according to any one of claims 29-31, wherein the receiving channel path parameter and the transmitting channel path parameter include channel path delay, and wherein, when the receiving channel path delay and the transmitting channel path delay When the difference between is less than the delay threshold, there is beam reciprocity between the transmitter end and the receiver end.
[Claim 33]
The electronic device according to any one of claims 29-31, wherein the receiving channel path parameter and the transmitting channel path parameter include a channel path gain, and wherein, when the receiving channel path gain and the transmitting channel path gain are between When the difference is less than the gain threshold, there is beam reciprocity between the transmitter end and the receiver end.
[Claim 34]
An electronic device used at the receiver end of a wireless communication system, comprising a processing circuit configured to: for each of a plurality of transmission beams used for transmitting a reference signal at the transmitter end of the wireless communication system, according to Using the reference signal transmitted via the transmit beam, estimate the path gain amplitude in the time domain of the channel path from the transmitter to the receiver corresponding to the transmit beam, and wherein, based on the estimated path in the time domain The gain amplitude determines a specific transmission beam among the plurality of transmission beams.
[Claim 35]
The electronic device according to claim 34, wherein, among the plurality of transmit beams, the path gain amplitude in the time domain of the channel path covered by the specific transmit beam is the largest.
[Claim 36]
The electronic device according to claim 34, wherein the path gain amplitude in the time domain is the amplitude of the time domain impulse response of the channel path.
[Claim 37]
An electronic device used at the transmitter end of a wireless communication system, comprising a processing circuit configured to: transmit a reference signal to the receiver end of the wireless communication system via each of a plurality of transmit beams; wherein, For each of the multiple transmission beams, estimate the path gain amplitude in the time domain of the channel path from the transmitter to the receiver corresponding to the transmission beam based on the reference signal transmitted via the transmission beam , And wherein, a specific transmission beam among the plurality of transmission beams is determined based on the estimated path gain amplitude in the time domain.
[Claim 38]
A method for a receiver side of a wireless communication system, comprising: estimating corresponding to the first beam based on a reference signal from the transmitter side of the wireless communication system transmitted via at least one second beam included in the coverage of the first beam Channel path parameters from the transmitter to the receiver of the two beams, and wherein a specific second beam of the at least one second beam is selected based on the estimated channel path parameters, corresponding to the specific second beam The estimated channel path parameter matches the channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam.
[Claim 39]
A method for a transmitter end of a wireless communication system includes: transmitting a reference signal to a receiver end of the wireless communication system via at least one second beam included in the coverage of the first beam, and wherein The estimated channel path parameter from the transmitter to the receiver corresponding to the second beam, selecting a specific second beam of the at least one second beam, and the estimated channel corresponding to the specific second beam The path parameter matches the channel path parameter corresponding to the first beam.
[Claim 40]
A method for the receiver of a wireless communication system, comprising: estimating the reception based on a reference signal received from the transmitter of the wireless communication system using the second beam as the transmitting beam and receiving the first beam as the receiving beam. Channel path parameters; and using the first beam as a transmission beam to transmit a reference signal to the transmitter end, wherein the transmitter end uses the second beam as a reception beam to receive the reference signal, so that the transmission channel path parameters can be Estimation; wherein the beam reciprocity between the transmitter end and the receiver end is determined based on the receive channel path parameter and the transmit channel path parameter.
[Claim 41]
A method for a transmitter of a wireless communication system, comprising: using a second beam as a transmitting beam to transmit a reference signal to a receiver of the wireless communication system, wherein the receiver uses the first beam as a receiving beam to receive The reference signal enables the transmission channel path parameters to be estimated; the reception channel path is estimated based on the reference signal transmitted from the receiver end of the wireless communication system using the first beam as the transmission beam and received by the second beam as the reception beam Parameters; and wherein the beam reciprocity between the transmitter end and the receiver end is determined based on the receive channel path parameter and the transmit channel path parameter.
[Claim 42]
A method for a receiver side of a wireless communication system includes: for each of a plurality of transmission beams used for transmitting a reference signal at the transmitter side of the wireless communication system, estimating the corresponding transmission beam according to the reference signal transmitted via the transmission beam The path gain amplitude in the time domain of the channel path from the transmitter to the receiver of the transmit beam, and wherein the path gain amplitude in the plurality of transmit beams is determined based on the estimated path gain amplitude in the time domain Specific transmit beam.
[Claim 43]
A method for a transmitter end of a wireless communication system includes: transmitting a reference signal to a receiver end of the wireless communication system via each of a plurality of transmission beams; wherein, for each of the plurality of transmission beams , According to the reference signal transmitted via the transmit beam, estimate the path gain amplitude in the time domain of the channel path from the transmitter to the receiver corresponding to the transmit beam, and wherein, based on the estimated time domain The path gain amplitude of determines a specific transmit beam among the plurality of transmit beams.
[Claim 44]
A non-transitory computer storage medium storing instructions, which when executed, cause a device to execute the method according to any one of claims 38 to 43.
[Claim 45]
An apparatus for use in a wireless communication system, comprising means for performing the operation of the method according to any one of claims 38-43.
[Claim 46]
A device for a wireless communication system, comprising: a processor, and a non-transitory computer storage medium, storing instructions, which when executed, cause the processor to execute the processor according to any one of claims 38 to 43 Methods.