CN108173633B

CN108173633B - Method and apparatus for receiving uplink reference signal

Info

Publication number: CN108173633B
Application number: CN201611117773.3A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 吴作敏; 官磊; 李�远; 郑娟; 马莎
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: XFusion Digital Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2016-12-07
Filing date: 2016-12-07
Publication date: 2020-04-28
Anticipated expiration: 2036-12-07
Also published as: WO2018103607A1; CN108173633A

Abstract

Provided are a method and apparatus for receiving an uplink reference signal, the method comprising: a network device allocating a first time-frequency resource for uplink transmission to a terminal device, where the first time-frequency resource includes at least two time units in the time domain, The first time-frequency resource is a time-frequency resource used by the terminal device in a competitive manner; the network device receives an uplink reference signal sent by the terminal device, wherein the uplink reference signal is carried in a first time unit, the first time unit Including the last time unit in the at least two time units, or, the first time unit includes the first time unit that can be used by the terminal device in the at least two time units, which can improve the reliability and accuracy of uplink transmission. sex.

Description

Method and device for receiving uplink reference signal

Technical Field

The embodiments of the present invention relate to the field of communications, and in particular, to a method and an apparatus for receiving an uplink reference signal, and a method and an apparatus for transmitting an uplink reference signal.

Background

At present, a communication method using time-frequency resources in a contention mode is known, for example, a terminal device may detect whether a certain time-frequency resource is currently in an idle state, or whether the time-frequency resource is used by other devices, and if the time-frequency resource is in the idle state, or the time-frequency resource is not used by other devices, the terminal device may use the time-frequency resource to perform communication, for example, perform uplink transmission, etc.; if the time-frequency resource is not in an idle state, or the time-frequency resource is already used by other devices, the terminal device cannot use the time-frequency resource.

In order to improve reliability and accuracy of uplink Transmission, a terminal device may send an uplink reference signal during uplink Transmission, and in the prior art, data in multiple Transmission Time Intervals (TTI) may share one uplink reference signal resource to reduce overhead of a reference signal and improve resource utilization of a system. In addition, in order to reduce the processing delay of uplink transmission, the uplink reference signal for data demodulation in multiple transmission time intervals is carried at the front end of the time-frequency resource for uplink transmission allocated to the terminal device by the network device in the time domain, for example, the first TTI in the time-frequency resource for uplink transmission allocated to the terminal device by the network device.

Therefore, when the time-frequency resource allocated to the terminal device by the network device is a time-frequency resource used based on a contention mode, the terminal device may not contend for a portion (for example, a first TTI in the time-frequency resource allocated to the terminal device) of the time-frequency resource for carrying the uplink reference signal, so that the terminal device may not transmit the uplink reference signal during uplink transmission, and reliability and accuracy of the uplink transmission are seriously affected.

Disclosure of Invention

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method and an apparatus for receiving an uplink reference signal, and a method and an apparatus for sending an uplink reference signal, which can improve reliability and accuracy of uplink transmission.

In a first aspect, a method for receiving an uplink reference signal is provided, where the method includes: the network equipment allocates a first time-frequency resource for uplink transmission to the terminal equipment, wherein the first time-frequency resource comprises at least two time units in a time domain, and the first time-frequency resource is a time-frequency resource used by the terminal equipment in a competition mode; the network device receives an uplink reference signal sent by the terminal device, where the uplink reference signal is carried in a first time unit, and the first time unit includes a last time unit of the at least two time units, or the first time unit includes a first time unit of the at least two time units, where the first time unit is capable of being used by the terminal device.

By enabling the terminal device to send the uplink reference signal on the last time unit of the time-frequency resource used based on the competition mode allocated by the network device, or by enabling the terminal device to send the uplink reference signal on the first time unit which is in competition by the terminal device in the time-frequency resource used based on the competition mode allocated by the network device, the time unit for bearing the uplink reference signal can be ensured to be used by the terminal device, and then the sending of the uplink reference signal is ensured, so that the reliability and the accuracy of uplink transmission can be improved.

With reference to the first aspect, in a first implementation manner of the first aspect, the first time-frequency resource belongs to an unlicensed frequency band in a frequency domain.

By applying the method for sending the uplink reference signal in the embodiment of the invention to the communication system using the unlicensed frequency band, the reliability of the transmission of the uplink reference signal in the communication system using the unlicensed frequency band can be improved, so that the practicability of the communication system using the unlicensed frequency band is improved, and the popularization of the communication system using the unlicensed frequency band is facilitated.

With reference to the first aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the first aspect, in a second implementation manner of the first aspect, when the first time unit includes a first time unit that can be used by the terminal device in the at least two time units, the uplink reference signal is carried in a first symbol that can be used by the terminal device in the first time unit.

The terminal equipment sends the uplink reference signal on the first symbol which is used by the terminal equipment in competition in the time-frequency resource which is used by the network equipment based on the competition mode, so that the sending time of the uplink reference signal is not later than that of the uplink data or the uplink control signal, the network equipment can be facilitated to detect or demodulate the uplink reference signal, and the processing time delay of uplink transmission is further reduced.

With reference to the first aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the first aspect, in a third implementation manner of the first aspect, when the first time unit includes a first time unit that can be used by the terminal device in the at least two time units, before the network device receives an uplink reference signal sent by the terminal device, the method includes: the network equipment sends first indication information to the terminal equipment, wherein the first indication information is used for indicating the terminal equipment to take a first time unit which can be used by the terminal equipment in the at least two time units as the first time unit; or the network device sends second indication information to the terminal device, where the second indication information is used to indicate that the terminal device uses the first time unit of the at least two time units as the first time unit.

With reference to the first aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the first aspect, in a fourth implementation manner of the first aspect, before the network device sends the first indication information or the second indication information to the terminal device, the method includes: the network device determines that at least one of the at least two time units belongs to a maximum channel occupancy time MCOT that the network device is capable of using.

When a part or all of time units in a first time-frequency resource allocated to a terminal device by a network device belong to an MCOT used by the network device, the terminal device may use a resource contention mode with a higher priority, so that the terminal device has a higher possibility of contending for a first time unit in the first time-frequency resource.

With reference to the first aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the first aspect, in a fifth implementation manner of the first aspect, when the first time unit includes a last time unit of the at least two time units, before the network device receives an uplink reference signal sent by the terminal device, the method includes: the network device sends third indication information to the terminal device, where the third indication information is used to indicate that the terminal device takes the last time unit of the at least two time units as the first time unit.

With reference to the first aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the first aspect, in a sixth implementation manner of the first aspect, before the network device sends the third indication information to the terminal device, the method includes: the network device determines that at least one of the at least two time units does not belong to an MCOT that the network device is capable of using.

When part or all of the time units in the first time-frequency resource terminal allocated to the terminal equipment by the network equipment do not belong to the MCOT used by the network equipment, the terminal equipment may use a resource competition mode with a lower priority, so that the terminal equipment has a lower possibility of competing to the time unit at the front end in the first time-frequency resource.

With reference to the first aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the first aspect, in a seventh implementation manner of the first aspect, when the first time unit includes a last time unit of the at least two time units, the method further includes: if the uplink data carried in the second time unit is received with an error, the network device determines that the redundancy version RV used for retransmission of the uplink data is 0, where the second time unit includes the time units other than the first time unit in the at least two time units.

When the terminal device sends the uplink reference signal through the last time unit in the first time-frequency resource, the network device cannot determine the starting position of uplink transmission through the uplink reference signal, and therefore, when a transmission error occurs, the network device cannot determine whether the transmission error is a transmission error caused by poor channel condition or a transmission error caused by the fact that the terminal device does not compete for a part of time units located at the front end in the first time-frequency resource, under the condition, the network device determines that the RV used for retransmission of the uplink data is 0, and therefore the influence on the uplink transmission due to the fact that the retransmission error cannot be determined can be reduced.

With reference to the first aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the first aspect, in an eighth implementation manner of the first aspect, when the first time unit includes a last time unit of the at least two time units, the method further includes: and if the uplink data carried on the second time unit is received incorrectly, the network equipment discards the uplink data, wherein the second time unit comprises the time units except the first time unit in the at least two time units.

When the terminal equipment sends the uplink reference signal through the last time unit in the first time-frequency resource, the network equipment cannot determine the initial position of uplink transmission through the uplink reference signal, so that when transmission errors occur, the network equipment cannot determine whether the transmission errors are transmission errors caused by poor channel conditions or transmission errors caused by the fact that the terminal equipment does not compete for a part of time units positioned at the front end in the first time-frequency resource.

With reference to the first aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the first aspect, in a ninth implementation manner of the first aspect, when the first time unit includes a last time unit of the at least two time units, the method further includes: the network device receives uplink control information sent by the terminal device, and the uplink control information is carried in the last time unit of the at least two time units.

The terminal device sends the uplink reference signal and the uplink control information through the last time unit in the first time-frequency resource, so that the transmission of the uplink reference signal can be ensured, and the network device can receive and process the uplink control information based on the uplink reference signal, such as demodulation and decoding, and the accuracy and reliability of the transmission of the uplink control information can be improved.

In a second aspect, a method for transmitting an uplink reference signal is provided, where the method includes: the method comprises the steps that terminal equipment determines a first time-frequency resource which is used for uplink transmission and is allocated by network equipment, wherein the first time-frequency resource comprises at least two time units in a time domain, and the first time-frequency resource is a time-frequency resource used by the terminal equipment in a competition mode; the terminal device determines a first time unit from the at least two time units, wherein the first time unit comprises the last time unit of the at least two time units, or the first time unit comprises the first time unit which can be used by the terminal device in the at least two time units; the terminal equipment transmits an uplink reference signal on the first time unit.

With reference to the second aspect, in a first implementation manner of the second aspect, the first time-frequency resource belongs to an unlicensed frequency band in a frequency domain.

With reference to the second aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the second aspect, in a second implementation manner of the second aspect, when the first time unit includes a first time unit that can be used by the terminal device in the at least two time units, the uplink reference signal is carried in a first symbol that can be used by the terminal device in the first time unit.

With reference to the second aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the second aspect, in a third implementation manner of the second aspect, the determining, by the terminal device, a first time unit from the at least two time units includes: the terminal device receives first indication information sent by the network device, wherein the first indication information is used for indicating that the terminal device takes a first time unit which can be used by the terminal device in the at least two time units as the first time unit, and the terminal device takes the first time unit which can be used by the terminal device in the at least two time units as the first time unit according to the first indication information; or the terminal device receives second indication information sent by the network device, where the second indication information is used to indicate that the terminal device uses a first time unit of the at least two time units as the first time unit, and the terminal device uses a first time unit of the at least two time units, which can be used by the terminal device, as the first time unit according to the second indication information.

With reference to the second aspect and the foregoing implementation manner, in a fourth implementation manner of the second aspect, the first indication information or the second indication information is sent by the network device after determining that at least one of the at least two time units belongs to the maximum channel occupancy time MCOT that can be used by the network device.

When a part or all of time units in a first time-frequency resource terminal allocated to a terminal device by a network device belong to an MCOT used by the network device, the terminal device may use a resource contention mode with a higher priority, so that the terminal device has a higher possibility of contending for a first time unit in the first time-frequency resource.

With reference to the second aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the second aspect, in a fifth implementation manner of the second aspect, the determining, by the terminal device, a first time unit from the at least two time units includes: the terminal device receives third indication information sent by the network device, wherein the third indication information is used for indicating the terminal device to take the last time unit of the at least two time units as the first time unit; and the terminal equipment takes the last time unit of the at least two time units as the first time unit according to the third indication information.

With reference to the second aspect and the foregoing implementation manner, in a sixth implementation manner of the second aspect, the third indication information is sent by the network device after determining that at least one of the at least two time units does not belong to an MCOT that can be used by the network device.

With reference to the second aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the second aspect, in a seventh implementation manner of the second aspect, when the first time unit includes a last time unit of the at least two time units, the method further includes: and the terminal equipment sends uplink control information to the network equipment in the last time unit of the at least two time units.

In a third aspect, an apparatus for receiving an uplink reference signal is provided, which includes means for performing the steps of the method for receiving an uplink reference signal in the first aspect and the implementation manners of the first aspect.

In a fourth aspect, an apparatus for transmitting an uplink reference signal is provided, which includes means for performing the steps of the method for transmitting an uplink reference signal in the second aspect and the implementations of the second aspect.

In a fifth aspect, an apparatus for receiving an uplink reference signal is provided, which includes a memory for storing a computer program and a processor for calling and executing the computer program from the memory, so that a network device performs the method for receiving an uplink reference signal according to the first aspect and any one of the various implementations thereof.

In a sixth aspect, an apparatus for transmitting an uplink reference signal is provided, which includes a memory for storing a computer program and a processor for calling and executing the computer program from the memory, so that a terminal device performs the method for receiving the uplink reference signal in the second aspect and any one of its various implementations.

In a seventh aspect, a computer program product is provided, the computer program product comprising: computer program code which, when run by a processing unit, a transmitting unit or a processor, a transmitter of a network device, causes the network device to perform the method of receiving uplink reference signals of the first aspect and any of its various implementations.

In an eighth aspect, there is provided a computer program product comprising: computer program code which, when run by a receiving unit, a processing unit or a receiver, processor of a terminal device, causes the terminal device to perform the method of transmitting an uplink reference signal of the second aspect and any of its various implementations as described above.

In a ninth aspect, a computer-readable storage medium is provided, which stores a program, and the program causes a network device to execute the method for receiving an uplink reference signal according to the first aspect and any one of its various implementations.

A tenth aspect provides a computer-readable storage medium storing a program for causing a terminal device to execute the method for transmitting an uplink reference signal according to the second aspect and any one of its various implementations.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic architecture diagram of a communication system to which the method and apparatus for transmitting or receiving an uplink reference signal according to the embodiments of the present invention are applied.

Fig. 2 is a schematic interaction diagram of an example of a transmission process of an uplink reference signal according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of locations of time units carrying uplink reference signals according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of another example of locations of time units carrying uplink reference signals according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a DMRS subframe according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 6 is a schematic interaction diagram of an example of a transmission process of downstream data according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 7 is a schematic block diagram of an example of an apparatus for receiving an uplink reference signal according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 8 is a schematic block diagram of another example of an apparatus for transmitting an uplink reference signal according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 9 is a schematic block diagram of an example of an apparatus for transmitting downlink data according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 10 is a schematic block diagram of another example of an apparatus for receiving downlink data according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

The technical solution in the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present invention.

As used in this specification, the terms "component," "module," "system," and the like are intended to refer to a computer-related entity, either hardware, firmware, a combination of hardware and software, or software in execution. For example, a component may be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor, an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or a computer. By way of illustration, both an application running on a computing device and the computing device can be a component. One or more components can reside within a process and/or thread of execution and a component can be localized on one computer and/or distributed between 2 or more computers. In addition, these components can execute from various computer readable media having various data structures stored thereon. The components may communicate by way of local and/or remote processes such as in accordance with a signal having one or more data packets (e.g., data from two components interacting with another component in a local system, distributed system, and/or across a network such as the internet with other systems by way of the signal).

It should be understood that the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention can be applied to various communication systems, for example: a Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) System, a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) System, a Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) System, a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), a Long Term Evolution (LTE) System, an advanced Long Term Evolution (LTE-a) System, a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) or a next-generation communication System, etc.

Generally, the conventional Communication system supports a limited number of connections and is easy to implement, however, as the Communication technology evolves, the mobile Communication system will support not only the conventional Communication but also, for example, Device-to-Device (D2D) Communication, Machine-to-Machine (M2M) Communication, Machine Type Communication (MTC), and Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) Communication.

The embodiments of the present invention have been described in connection with terminal devices. A terminal device may also be referred to as a User Equipment (UE), an access terminal, a subscriber unit, a subscriber station, a mobile station, a remote terminal, a mobile device, a User terminal, a wireless communication device, a User agent, or a User Equipment. The terminal device may be a Station (ST) in a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), and may be a cellular phone, a cordless phone, a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) phone, a Wireless Local Loop (WLL) station, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) device, a handheld device with Wireless communication function, a computing device or other processing device connected to a Wireless modem, a vehicle-mounted device, a wearable device, and a next-generation communication system, such as a terminal device in a fifth-generation communication (5G) Network or a terminal device in a future-evolution Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) Network, and the like.

By way of example, and not limitation, in embodiments of the present invention, the terminal device may also be a wearable device. Wearable equipment can also be called wearable intelligent equipment, is the general term of applying wearable technique to carry out intelligent design, develop the equipment that can dress to daily wearing, like glasses, gloves, wrist-watch, dress and shoes etc.. A wearable device is a portable device that is worn directly on the body or integrated into the clothing or accessories of the user. The wearable device is not only a hardware device, but also realizes powerful functions through software support, data interaction and cloud interaction. The generalized wearable smart device includes full functionality, large size, and can implement full or partial functionality without relying on a smart phone, such as: smart watches or smart glasses and the like, and only focus on a certain type of application functions, and need to be used in cooperation with other devices such as smart phones, such as various smart bracelets for physical sign monitoring, smart jewelry and the like.

Furthermore, various embodiments of the present invention are described in connection with a network device. The network device may be a device such as a network device for communicating with a mobile device, and the network device may be an ACCESS POINT (AP) in a WLAN, a Base Transceiver Station (BTS) in GSM or CDMA, a Base Station (NodeB) in WCDMA, an evolved Node B (eNB) in LTE, a relay Station or an ACCESS POINT, or a network device in a vehicle-mounted device, a wearable device, a future 5G network, or a network device in a future evolved PLMN network.

In addition, in this embodiment of the present invention, the terminal device may perform wireless communication in a cell, where the cell may be a cell corresponding to a network device (for example, a base station), and the cell may belong to a macro base station or a base station corresponding to a small cell (small cell), where the small cell may include: urban cells (Metro cells), Micro cells (Micro cells), Pico cells (Pico cells), Femto cells (Femto cells), and the like, and the small cells have the characteristics of small coverage area and low transmission power, and are suitable for providing high-rate data transmission services.

In addition, multiple cells can simultaneously work at the same frequency on the carrier in the LTE system, and under some special scenes, the concepts of the carrier and the cells in the LTE system can also be considered to be equivalent. For example, in a Carrier Aggregation (CA) scenario, when configuring a secondary carrier for a UE, the secondary carrier may simultaneously carry a carrier index of the secondary carrier and a Cell identity (Cell identity, Cell ID) of a secondary Cell operating on the secondary carrier, and in this case, it may be considered that the concepts of the carrier and the Cell are equivalent, for example, it is equivalent that the UE accesses one carrier and one Cell.

The method and the device provided by the embodiment of the invention can be applied to terminal equipment or network equipment, and the terminal equipment or the network equipment comprises a hardware layer, an operating system layer running on the hardware layer and an application layer running on the operating system layer. The hardware layer includes hardware such as a Central Processing Unit (CPU), a Memory Management Unit (MMU), and a Memory (also referred to as a main Memory). The operating system may be any one or more computer operating systems that implement business processing through processes (processes), such as a Linux operating system, a Unix operating system, an Android operating system, an iOS operating system, or a windows operating system. The application layer comprises applications such as a browser, an address list, word processing software, instant messaging software and the like. In the embodiment of the present invention, a specific structure of an execution main body of the method for wireless communication is not particularly limited in the embodiment of the present invention, as long as the execution main body can communicate with the method for wireless communication according to the embodiment of the present invention by running a program recorded with a code of the method for wireless communication of the embodiment of the present invention, for example, the execution main body of the method for wireless communication of the embodiment of the present invention may be a terminal device or a network device, or a functional module capable of calling a program and executing the program in the terminal device or the network device.

Moreover, various aspects or features of embodiments of the invention may be implemented as a method, apparatus, or article of manufacture using standard programming and/or engineering techniques. The term "article of manufacture" as used herein is intended to encompass a computer program accessible from any computer-readable device, carrier, or media. For example, computer-readable media can include but are not limited to magnetic storage devices (e.g., hard disk, floppy disk, magnetic strips, etc.), optical disks (e.g., Compact disk ("CD"), digital versatile disk ("DVD"), etc.), smart cards, and flash Memory devices (e.g., Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory ("EPROM"), card, stick, or key drive, etc.). In addition, various storage media described herein can represent one or more devices and/or other machine-readable media for storing information. The term "machine-readable medium" can include, without being limited to, wireless channels and various other media capable of storing, containing, and/or carrying instruction(s) and/or data.

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a wireless communication system employing an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in fig. 1, the communication system 100 includes a network device 102, and the network device 102 may include 1 antenna or multiple antennas, e.g.,

antennas

104, 106, 108, 110, 112, and 114. Additionally, network device 102 can additionally include a transmitter chain and a receiver chain, each of which can comprise a plurality of components associated with signal transmission and reception (e.g., processors, modulators, multiplexers, demodulators, demultiplexers, antennas, etc.), as will be appreciated by one skilled in the art.

Network device 102 may communicate with a plurality of terminal devices, such as terminal device 116 and terminal device 122. However, it is understood that network device 102 may communicate with any number of terminal devices similar to

terminal devices

116 or 122.

End devices

116 and 122 may be, for example, cellular phones, smart phones, laptops, handheld communication devices, handheld computing devices, satellite radios, global positioning systems, PDAs, and/or any other suitable device for communicating over wireless communication system 100.

As shown in fig. 1, terminal device 116 is in communication with

antennas

112 and 114, where

antennas

112 and 114 transmit information to terminal device 116 over a forward link (also called a downlink) 118 and receive information from terminal device 116 over a reverse link (also called an uplink) 120. In addition, terminal device 122 is in communication with

antennas

104 and 106, where

antennas

104 and 106 transmit information to terminal device 122 over forward link 124 and receive information from terminal device 122 over reverse link 126.

In a Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) system, forward link 118 can utilize a different Frequency band than reverse link 120, and forward link 124 can employ a different Frequency band than reverse link 126, for example.

As another example, in Time Division Duplex (TDD) systems and full Duplex (fullblex) systems, forward link 118 and reverse link 120 may use a common frequency band and forward link 124 and reverse link 126 may use a common frequency band.

Each antenna (or group of antennas consisting of multiple antennas) and/or area designed for communication is referred to as a sector of network device 102. For example, antenna groups may be designed to communicate to terminal devices in a sector of the areas covered by network device 102. A network device may transmit signals to all terminal devices in its corresponding sector through single-antenna or multi-antenna transmit diversity. During communication by network device 102 with

terminal devices

116 and 122 over forward links 118 and 124, respectively, the transmitting antennas of network device 102 may also utilize beamforming to improve signal-to-noise ratio of forward links 118 and 124. Moreover, mobile devices in neighboring cells can experience less interference when network device 102 utilizes beamforming to transmit to

terminal devices

116 and 122 scattered randomly through an associated coverage area, as compared to a manner in which the network device transmits signals to all of its terminal devices through single-antenna or multi-antenna transmit diversity.

At a given time, network device 102, terminal device 116, or terminal device 122 may be a wireless communication transmitting apparatus and/or a wireless communication receiving apparatus. When sending data, the wireless communication sending device may encode the data for transmission. Specifically, the wireless communication transmitting device may obtain (e.g., generate, receive from other communication devices, or save in memory, etc.) a number of data bits to be transmitted over the channel to the wireless communication receiving device. Such data bits may be contained in a transport block (or transport blocks) of data, which may be segmented to produce multiple code blocks.

In addition, the communication system 100 may be a PLMN network, a D2D network, an M2M network, or other networks, and fig. 1 is a simplified schematic diagram for example, and other network devices may be included in the network, which are not shown in fig. 1.

The time-frequency resources used by the communication system 100 for wireless communication will be described in detail below.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the time domain resource used by the network device and the terminal device for transmitting information may be divided into a plurality of time units in the time domain.

In addition, in the embodiment of the present invention, the plurality of time units may be consecutive, or some adjacent time units may have a preset interval therebetween, and the embodiment of the present invention is not particularly limited.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the time unit may be a time unit including information for uplink information (e.g., uplink data) transmission and/or downlink information (e.g., downlink data) transmission.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the length of one time unit may be set arbitrarily, and the embodiment of the present invention is not particularly limited.

For example, 1 time unit may include one or more subframes.

Alternatively, 1 time unit may include one or more time slots.

Alternatively, 1 time unit may include one or more symbols.

Alternatively, 1 time unit may include one or more Transmission Time Intervals (TTIs).

Alternatively, 1 time unit may include one or more short transmission time intervals (short TransmissionTime intervals, abbreviated as "sTTI").

In the embodiment of the present invention, the time-frequency resource used by the communication system 100 for wireless communication may be divided into a plurality of TTIs in the time domain, where a TTI is a commonly used parameter in a current communication system (e.g., an LTE system) and refers to a scheduling unit for scheduling data transmission in a wireless link. In the prior art, 1TTI is generally considered to be 1 ms. That is, one TTI is the size of one subframe (subframe) or two slots (slots), which is a basic unit of time governed by radio resource management (scheduling, etc.).

In a communication network, time delay is a key performance indicator, and simultaneously, the use experience of a user is also influenced. With the development of communication protocols, the scheduling interval of the physical layer having the most significant effect on latency is also getting smaller and smaller, and in the initial WCDMA, the scheduling interval is 10ms, the scheduling interval in High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) is shortened to 2ms, and the scheduling interval (i.e., TTI) in Long Term Evolution (LTE) is shortened to 1 ms.

Due to the service requirement of small time delay, a shorter TTI frame structure needs to be introduced into the physical layer, so that the scheduling interval is further shortened, and the user experience is improved. For example, the TTI length in an LTE system can be shortened from 1ms to between 1 symbol (symbol) and 1 slot (consisting of 7 symbols). The above-mentioned symbols may be Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) symbols or Single Carrier-Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) symbols in the LTE system, and may also be symbols in other communication systems. Also for example, the TTI length in a 5G communication system is less than 1 ms.

In data transmission based on a TTI with a length of 1ms, an LTE system typically has a Round-Trip Time (RTT) of 8 ms. It is assumed that the processing time is scaled down compared to the existing scheduling of TTIs of length 1ms, i.e. still following the existing RTT delay. Then, in the data transmission based on the sTTI with the length of 0.5ms, the RTT of the data transmission is 4ms, and the time delay can be shortened by half compared with the data transmission based on the TTI with the length of 1ms, thereby improving the user experience.

TTIs with a length of less than 1ms may be referred to as sTTI. For example, in the LTE system, the length of the sTTI may be any one of 1 to 7 symbols, or the length of the sTTI may also be a combination of at least 2 different lengths of 1 to 7 symbols, for example, 1ms includes 6 sTTI, each length of the sTTI may be 3 symbols, 2 symbols, 3 symbols, or 1ms includes 4 sTTI, each length of the sTTI may be 3 symbols, 4 symbols, or each length of the sTTI may also be a combination of other different lengths.

The length of sTTI in uplink may be the same as the length of sTTI in downlink, for example, the length of sTTI in uplink and the length of sTTI in downlink are both 2 symbols.

Alternatively, the uplink sTTI length may be longer than the downlink sTTI length, e.g., the uplink sTTI length is 7 symbols and the downlink sTTI length is 2 symbols.

Still alternatively, the length of sTTI of the uplink may be shorter than that of sTTI of the downlink, for example, the length of sTTI of the uplink is 4 symbols, and the length of sTTI of the downlink is 1 subframe.

Data packets with a TTI length of less than 1 subframe or 1ms are referred to as short TTI data packets. The short TTI data transmission can be distributed continuously or discontinuously in the frequency domain. In consideration of backward compatibility, the system may simultaneously transmit data based on a TTI of 1ms and transmit data based on an sTTI.

In the embodiment of the present invention, TTIs and sTTI (for example, with a length of 1ms or a length greater than 1 ms) specified in the prior art (for example, an LTE system) may be collectively referred to as a TTI, and in the embodiment of the present invention, the length of the TTI may be changed according to actual needs.

It should be understood that the above-mentioned structure of the time unit is only an exemplary illustration, and the embodiment of the present invention is not particularly limited, and the structure of the time unit may be arbitrarily changed according to actual needs, for example, for an LTE system that does not support sTTI, 1 time unit may be 1 Subframe (Subframe). For another example, for an LTE system supporting sTTI, 1 time unit may include 1 sTTI, or 1 time unit may include 1 Slot (Slot), and 1 time unit may include one or more (e.g., a positive integer less than 7 or a positive integer less than 6) symbols; the 1 time unit may also be 1 subframe.

It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present invention, the length of the time unit used for information transmission (or the information transmission duration) may be 1ms, or may be less than 1 ms. Or, in combination with the above description, even for the LTE system that does not support sTTI, when a time unit is represented by a subframe, the length used for downlink information transmission in the time unit may be 1ms, or may be less than 1ms, and similarly, the length used for uplink information transmission in the time unit may be 1ms, or may be less than 1 ms.

Hereinafter, for convenience of understanding, a transmission procedure of an uplink reference signal according to the present invention will be described by taking a case where one time unit includes one sTTI as an example.

In addition, in the embodiment of the present invention, the time-frequency resource (for example, the first time-frequency resource) used by the network device and the terminal device for uplink transmission includes at least two time units.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the time domain resources used by the network device and the terminal device for transmitting information are time frequency resources used based on a contention mechanism, that is, the terminal device may detect whether a certain time frequency resource is currently in an idle state, or whether the time frequency resource is used by other devices, and if the time frequency resource is in an idle state, or the time frequency resource is not used by other devices, the terminal device may use the time frequency resource for communication, for example, for uplink transmission; if the time-frequency resource is not in an idle state, or the time-frequency resource is already used by other devices, the terminal device cannot use the time-frequency resource. It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present invention, the specific method and process of the contention mechanism may be similar to those in the prior art, and a detailed description thereof is omitted here to avoid redundancy.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the time frequency resource used by the communication system 100 (or the time frequency resource used by the network device and the terminal device based on the contention mechanism) may be a licensed time frequency resource or an unlicensed time frequency resource, which is not particularly limited in the embodiment of the present invention. In the embodiment of the present invention, each communication device (e.g., a network device or a terminal device) in the communication system 100 may use a time-frequency resource for communication based on a scheduling-free transmission scheme, and may also use the time-frequency resource for communication based on a scheduling manner, which is not particularly limited in the embodiment of the present invention.

The unlicensed time-frequency resource refers to a resource that can be shared by the respective communication devices to use the unlicensed time-frequency domain. Resource sharing on the unlicensed frequency band means that only the limit on indexes such as transmission power, out-of-band leakage and the like is regulated for the use of a specific frequency spectrum so as to ensure that a plurality of devices commonly using the frequency band meet basic coexistence requirements, and an operator can achieve the purpose of network capacity distribution by using the unlicensed frequency band resource but needs to comply with the regulatory requirements of different regions and different frequency spectrums on the unlicensed frequency band resource. These requirements are usually made to protect public systems such as radar, and to ensure that multiple systems coexist fairly without causing harmful effects to each other as much as possible, including transmit power limitations, out-of-band leakage indicators, indoor and outdoor usage limitations, and in some regions, some additional coexistence strategies. For example, each communication device can use time-frequency resources in a contention mode or a listening mode, for example, a mode specified by Listen Before Talk (LBT).

In the embodiment of the present invention, the transmission of data may be scheduled based on the network device, and the scheduled basic time unit is one or more TTIs (e.g., including sTTI described above). The specific scheduling procedure is that the base station transmits a Control Channel, for example, a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) or an Enhanced Physical Downlink Control Channel (EPDCCH) for scheduling sTTI transmission, where the Control Channel may carry scheduling Information using different Downlink Control Information (DCI) formats for scheduling Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) or Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH), and the scheduling Information includes Control Information such as resource allocation Information and modulation and coding scheme. The terminal equipment detects the control channel and receives the downlink data channel or transmits the uplink data channel according to the scheduling information carried in the detected control channel. When the sTTI technique is introduced, the scheduling information carried in the control channel may indicate that the TTI length is 1ms or the TTI length is less than 1ms for downlink data channel reception or uplink data channel transmission.

In order to solve a large amount of MTC services in a future network and meet low-delay and high-reliability service transmission, a scheduling-free transmission scheme can be used. In the embodiment of the present invention, the transmission of data may also be scheduling-free. Scheduling Free transmission may be expressed in english as Grant Free. The scheduling-free transmission here may be for uplink data transmission or downlink data transmission. The non-scheduled transmission can be understood as any one of the following meanings, or a plurality of meanings, or a combination of partial technical features in the plurality of meanings or other similar meanings:

the schedule-free transmission may refer to: the network equipment allocates and informs the terminal equipment of a plurality of transmission resources in advance; when the terminal equipment has the requirement of uplink data transmission, selecting at least one transmission resource from a plurality of transmission resources pre-allocated by the network equipment, and sending uplink data by using the selected transmission resource; and the network equipment detects the uplink data sent by the terminal equipment on one or more transmission resources in the plurality of pre-allocated transmission resources. The detection may be blind detection, or detection according to a certain control field in the uplink data, or detection in other manners.

The schedule-free transmission may refer to: the network device pre-allocates and informs the terminal device of a plurality of transmission resources, so that when the terminal device has a requirement for uplink data transmission, at least one transmission resource is selected from the plurality of transmission resources pre-allocated by the network device, and the selected transmission resource is used for transmitting uplink data.

The schedule-free transmission may refer to: the method comprises the steps of obtaining information of a plurality of pre-allocated transmission resources, selecting at least one transmission resource from the plurality of transmission resources when uplink data transmission is required, and sending the uplink data by using the selected transmission resource. The manner of acquisition may be acquired from a network device.

The schedule-free transmission may refer to: the method for realizing uplink data transmission of the terminal equipment without dynamic scheduling of the network equipment can be a scheduling mode that the network equipment indicates transmission resources for each uplink data transmission of the terminal equipment through signaling. Alternatively, implementing uplink data transmission of a terminal device may be understood as allowing data of two or more terminal devices to be transmitted on the same time-frequency resource. Optionally, the transmission resource may be a transmission resource of one or more transmission time units after the time when the terminal device receives the signaling. One transmission time unit may refer to a minimum time unit of one transmission, such as TTI.

The schedule-free transmission may refer to: the terminal equipment carries out uplink data transmission under the condition of not needing network equipment scheduling. The scheduling may refer to that the terminal device sends an uplink scheduling request to the network device, and the network device sends an uplink grant to the terminal device after receiving the scheduling request, where the uplink grant indicates an uplink transmission resource allocated to the terminal device.

The schedule-free transmission may refer to: a contention transmission mode, specifically, may refer to that multiple terminals perform uplink data transmission simultaneously on the same pre-allocated time-frequency resource without the need of a base station for scheduling.

The data may include service data or signaling data.

The blind detection may be understood as a detection of data that may arrive without predicting whether data arrives. The blind detection may also be understood as a detection without an explicit signaling indication.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the basic time unit of scheduling-free transmission may be one TTI (e.g., including sTTI described above). When the sTTI technique is introduced, the scheduling-free transmission may include receiving on a downlink data channel with a TTI length of 1ms or sending on an uplink data channel with a TTI length of less than 1 ms.

By way of example and not limitation, in an embodiment of the invention, the unlicensed spectrum resources may include a frequency band near 5GHz, a frequency band near 2.4GHz, a frequency band near 3.5GHz, and a frequency band near 60 GHz.

For example, but not limited to, the communication system 100 may adopt a long term evolution-allowed Access Using LTE (abbreviated as "LAA-LTE") technology on an Unlicensed carrier, or may also adopt a technology supporting independent deployment of the communication system in an Unlicensed frequency band, such as a standby LTE over Unlicensed spectrum, or may also adopt an LTE-U (LTE-U) technology, that is, the communication system 100 may independently deploy an LTE system to the Unlicensed frequency band, and further complete communication in an LTE air interface protocol on the Unlicensed frequency band, where the system does not include the Licensed frequency band. The LTE system deployed in the unlicensed frequency band can utilize technologies such as centralized scheduling, interference coordination, Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) and the like, and compared with access technologies such as Wi-Fi, the technology has better robustness, can obtain higher spectrum efficiency, and provides a larger coverage area and better user experience.

Also, by way of example and not limitation, in the embodiments of the present invention, the communication system 100 may employ, for example, Licensed-Assisted Access (LAA), Dual Connectivity (DC), unlicensed-Assisted Access (standby) technology, and the like. The LAA includes configuration and structure of Carrier Aggregation (CA) in the existing LTE system, and configures carriers (licensed carriers) on multiple unlicensed frequency bands based on configuring carriers (licensed carriers) on a licensed frequency band of an operator for communication, and uses the licensed carriers as an auxiliary to perform communication using the unlicensed carriers. That is, the LTE device may use a licensed Carrier as a Primary Component Carrier (PCC) or a Primary Cell (PCell) and use an unlicensed Carrier as a Secondary Component Carrier (SCC) or a Secondary Cell (SCell) by means of CA. The dual connectivity DC technique includes a technique in which a licensed carrier and an unlicensed carrier are jointly used by means of non-CA (or non-ideal backhaul), or also includes a technique in which a plurality of unlicensed carriers are jointly used by means of non-CA. The LTE device may also be deployed directly on the unlicensed carrier by an independent deployment.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the time-frequency resource used by the communication system 100 (or the time-frequency resource used by the network device and the terminal device based on the contention mechanism) may be a licensed spectrum resource, that is, the communication system 100 of the embodiment of the present invention is a communication system capable of using a licensed frequency band, and each terminal device in the system 100 may use the time-frequency resource of the licensed frequency band in a contention manner.

The licensed time frequency resources generally need to be approved by a national or local wireless committee to use the time frequency resources, and different systems such as an LTE system and a WiFi system, or systems included by different operators may not share and use the licensed time frequency resources.

Additionally, in some of the embodiments of the present invention, the network device may be capable of providing one or more unlicensed cells (or may also be referred to as unlicensed carriers) and one or more licensed cells (or may also be referred to as licensed carriers).

In addition, it should be noted that the information transmission of the LTE system on the unlicensed frequency band may not have a fixed frame structure. In summary, an access network device, such as a base station or a cell, may determine, according to a downlink traffic load and/or an uplink traffic load, or other considerations, a transmission duration of downlink information and/or a transmission duration of uplink information after preempting an unlicensed spectrum resource. Further, after preempting the unlicensed spectrum resource, the access network device may flexibly adjust the number of time units including the downlink information (i.e., downlink time units), the number of time units including the uplink information (i.e., uplink time units), the transmission duration of the downlink information included in each downlink time unit, and the transmission duration of the uplink information included in each uplink time unit.

In addition, a concept of Transmission opportunity (TxOP) is introduced into a frame structure of the LTE system on the unlicensed frequency band, where the Transmission opportunity may also be referred to as a Transmission Burst (Transmission Burst), and one TxOP may include a Downlink Burst (DL Transmission Burst) and/or an Uplink Burst (Uplink Transmission Burst).

The downlink burst transmission (which may also be referred to as "downlink burst data transmission", or "downlink burst information transmission") may include: after an access network device (e.g., eNB) or a Cell (Cell) under the access network device preempts the unlicensed frequency band resource, information transmission (or data transmission) using the unlicensed frequency band resource is performed in a manner that does not need to go through a contention mechanism (e.g., LBT). The Time length of one downlink burst transmission is not longer than the Maximum Time that the access network device (or the cell) can continuously transmit on the unlicensed frequency band resource without a contention mechanism, and the Maximum Time may also be referred to as Maximum Channel Occupied Time (MCOT). The length of MCOT may be related to regional regulatory constraints, for example, in japan MCOT may be equal to 4 ms; in europe MCOT may be equal to 8ms, or 10ms, or 13 ms. Alternatively, the length of the MCOT may also be related to the contention mechanism adopted by the listening device (e.g., access network device or terminal device), and generally speaking, the shorter the listening time, the shorter the MCOT. Still alternatively, the length of the MCOT may also be related to the traffic class of the transmission. In the embodiment of the present invention, the MCOT may be determined by other factors, and is not particularly limited.

It should be noted that, in the above description, "information transmission using the unlicensed frequency band resource without using a contention mechanism" may include that, after the access network device or the cell preempts the unlicensed frequency band resource, it is not required to evaluate whether the unlicensed frequency band resource is available again through the contention mechanism within a time period when the information is actually sent on the unlicensed frequency band resource or within the MCOT. For example, taking the downlink burst transmission included in the first TxOP as an example, the base station does not need to evaluate whether the unlicensed frequency band resource is available again through a contention mechanism from the second subframe in the downlink burst transmission. In other words, before the downlink burst data transmission, it is required to determine that the unlicensed spectrum resource is available, and once the downlink burst data transmission starts, the availability of the unlicensed spectrum resource may not be re-evaluated until the downlink burst data transmission ends.

Or, "information transmission using the unlicensed band resource without using a contention mechanism" may further include that, after the access network device or the cell preempts the unlicensed band resource, the access network device or the cell may adopt the contention mechanism without considering coexistence with the different system in the time of actually transmitting information on the unlicensed band resource or in the MCOT, but may adopt the contention mechanism with considering coexistence with the same system, where the contention mechanism adopted for coexistence with the same system may include a specific time unit (or idle time unit) in which the base station or the cell may stop information transmission (or may stop transmitting information) after the access network device or the cell preempts the unlicensed band resource, and in the specific time unit, the base station or the cell may perform channel sensing to re-evaluate whether the unlicensed band resource is available, instead of performing channel sensing, the information may be continuously transmitted during a specific time unit, during the time of transmitting the information or during the MCOT. For example, the access network device may stop sending information for a period of time at any time position within a time range from the beginning to the end of the downlink burst transmission. Here, for the LTE system, the non-LTE system may be seen as a heterogeneous system, such as a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) system or a system using Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) technology; the LTE system can be regarded as the same system, and both the LTE system belonging to the same operator and the LTE system belonging to different operators can be regarded as the same system. Here, the LTE system includes a base station and/or a terminal device.

Similarly, the uplink burst transmission (which may also be referred to as "uplink burst data transmission", or "uplink burst information transmission") may include: after preempting the unlicensed frequency band resource, the terminal device uses the unlicensed frequency band resource for information transmission in a manner that does not need to go through a contention mechanism (e.g., LBT). For a single terminal device, the time length of uplink burst transmission may not be greater than the MCOT on the unlicensed frequency band resource, or there may be other limitations on the time length of uplink burst transmission. The uplink burst transmission may include information transmission of a single user, or may include information transmission of multiple users. From the access network device side, the uplink burst transmission may be an uplink information transmission included in the TxOP.

Moreover, the understanding of "information transmission using the unlicensed frequency band resource without a contention mechanism" at the terminal device side is the same as that at the access network device side, and is not described herein again.

The same system may also be understood as a terminal device having the same serving cell or serving access network device as the terminal device. The uplink burst transmission further includes that, after preempting the resource of the unlicensed frequency band, the access network device performs information transmission from the first uplink subframe that can be scheduled to the last uplink subframe that can be scheduled based on a specific time delay (e.g., based on a time delay of 4 ms) in a time range in which the access network device does not need to perform information transmission using the unlicensed frequency band through a contention mechanism, for example, a time range from the first uplink subframe to the last uplink subframe corresponds to the uplink burst transmission. In the embodiment of the present invention, the time length of the scheduled uplink subframe for uplink information transmission may be less than 1 ms.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the time length of one TxOP may not be greater than the maximum transmission time length allowed by the downlink burst transmission, or not greater than the maximum transmission time length allowed by the uplink burst transmission, or not greater than the sum of the maximum transmission time length allowed by the downlink burst transmission and the maximum time length allowed by the uplink burst transmission, or the time length of one burst transmission may not be greater than MCOT on the unlicensed frequency band resource. For example, for a given device, whether it is an access network device or a terminal device, or another device, after preempting the unlicensed frequency band resource, the maximum time length for which data can be transmitted without using a contention mechanism is 8ms (corresponding to the aforementioned MCOT), that is, even if a TxOP includes both DL Transmission Burst and UL Transmission Burst, the maximum time length for Transmission of a TxOP (or Transmission Burst) is 8 ms. Therefore, the uplink burst transmission may employ some contention mechanisms that easily enable the terminal device to camp on (or compete for) the unlicensed frequency band resource.

As mentioned above, the information transmission of the LTE system on the unlicensed frequency band has no fixed frame structure, and may include at least one of the following: the durations of different downlink burst transmissions may be different, the durations of different uplink burst transmissions may be different, the durations of downlink burst transmissions included in different txops (which may be adjacent or non-adjacent), the durations of uplink burst transmissions included in different txops may be different, and the durations of different txops may be different. In the embodiment of the present invention, the duration of the downlink burst transmission includes a time length from a start time of the downlink burst to an end time of the downlink burst; the duration of the uplink burst transmission includes a time length from a start time of the uplink burst to an end time of the uplink burst.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the uplink transmission may include uplink burst transmission, which is referred to as "uplink burst" for short. Before performing uplink transmission, the terminal device needs to determine whether a time-frequency resource (e.g., a resource on an unlicensed frequency band scheduled by the network device) scheduled by the network device is available through, for example, LBT, and the like, and as to where to perform LBT specifically, the present invention is not limited specifically.

In the embodiment of the present invention, one uplink burst transmission may include one or more time units.

Moreover, when one uplink burst transmission includes a plurality of time units, the plurality of time units in the uplink burst transmission may be continuous or discontinuous (for example, some adjacent time units are separated by a time interval), and the embodiment of the present invention is not particularly limited.

Optionally, the time length of each time unit is the same in a plurality of consecutive time units included in each uplink burst transmission.

That is, in the embodiment of the present invention, each time unit in one uplink burst transmission may be a time unit including the same number of symbols.

For example, each time unit in one uplink burst transmission is one subframe in length.

For another example, each time unit in an uplink burst transmission is 2 symbols in length.

Or, optionally, the time lengths of at least two time units in a plurality of consecutive time units included in each uplink burst transmission are different.

That is, in the embodiment of the present invention, at least two time units in each time unit in one uplink burst transmission include different numbers of symbols.

For example, the time length of the time unit except the first time unit and/or the last time unit in one uplink burst transmission is 1ms (i.e. 1 subframe). And, the time length of the first time unit in one uplink burst transmission may be less than 1 ms; or, the time length of the last time unit in an uplink burst transmission may be less than 1 ms; or, the time length of the first time unit and the time length of the last time unit in one uplink burst transmission are both less than 1 ms. The time lengths of the first time unit and the last time unit may be the same or different.

For another example, the time length of one time unit in one uplink burst transmission may be any positive integer number of symbols less than 8, for example, one uplink burst transmission includes 6 time units, and the time length corresponding to each time unit is 3 symbols, 2 symbols, and 3 symbols.

In this embodiment of the present invention, a time unit in one burst transmission may be used to transmit data of one terminal device, and may also be used to transmit data of multiple terminal devices. For another example, a plurality of terminal devices served by the same access network device may transmit data to the access network device by using time units in a burst transmission in a frequency division multiplexing, time division multiplexing, space division multiplexing, or code division multiplexing manner.

In the embodiment of the present invention, each burst transmission may be divided in advance (or configured statically or semi-statically), that is, the higher management device of each burst transmission communication system divides and notifies each access network device, or the division manner of each burst transmission may be defined by a communication protocol, or the division manner of each burst transmission may be stored in each access network device in advance by factory settings, administrator settings, or the like. For example, for the same unlicensed spectrum resource, each access network device may use the unlicensed spectrum resource in a time division multiplexing manner, and a specific corresponding time usage range may be divided by a high-level management device, and in the divided time usage range, the unlicensed spectrum resource also needs to be used through channel evaluation.

Alternatively, in the embodiment of the present invention, each burst transmission may also be autonomously determined (or dynamically changed) by each access network device, that is, each access network device may determine an available time unit in a contention manner, and use one or more contended time units as one or more burst transmissions, for example, the access network device may configure multiple contended time units in the same burst transmission.

Next, a transmission process of the uplink reference signal according to an embodiment of the present invention is described in detail with reference to fig. 2. Fig. 2 is a schematic interaction diagram of an example of a transmission process of an uplink reference signal according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in fig. 2, at S210, the network device may allocate a time-frequency resource # a (i.e., an example of a first time-frequency resource) for uplink transmission to a terminal device # a (i.e., an example of a terminal device).

The time-frequency resource # a includes two or more time units in the time domain, and for convenience of understanding and explanation, the time units included in the time-frequency resource # a are denoted as follows: time unit #1 to time unit # N, N being an integer greater than 1.

In addition, the time-frequency resource # a is a time-frequency resource used based on a contention mechanism, and specifically, although the time unit #1 to the time unit # N (or the time-frequency resource # a) are allocated to the terminal device # a by the network device, the terminal device # a still needs to use the time unit #1 to the time unit # N in a contention manner, or the terminal device # a can only use the time-frequency resource contended (or preempted) by the terminal device # a in the time unit #1 to the time unit # N.

For example, by way of example and not limitation, time-frequency resource # a may be a time-frequency resource on an unlicensed frequency band.

It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present invention, the time unit #1 to the time unit # N may be consecutive, and some adjacent time units of the time unit #1 to the time unit # N may have one or more time units or symbols therebetween, and the present invention is not particularly limited.

In addition, in the embodiment of the present invention, the time frequency resource # a may be a time frequency resource that is individually allocated to the terminal equipment # a by the network equipment; alternatively, the time-frequency resource # a may be a time-frequency resource allocated by a network device to a plurality of terminal devices including the terminal device # a, and the embodiment of the present invention is not particularly limited.

In addition, in the embodiment of the present invention, the time-frequency resource # a may be allocated to the terminal apparatus # a by the network apparatus after determining that the terminal apparatus # a needs to perform uplink transmission; alternatively, the time-frequency resource # a may be allocated to the terminal apparatus # a, for example, when the terminal apparatus # a accesses a cell provided by the network apparatus; still alternatively, the time frequency resource # a may be determined and allocated to the terminal device # a from contended unlicensed time frequency resources when the network device contends for a part or all of the unlicensed time frequency resources provided by the communication system, for example, and the embodiment of the present invention is not particularly limited.

By way of example and not limitation, for example, the network device may send the indication information of the time-frequency resource # a to the terminal device # a through the resource scheduling information, so that the terminal device # a may determine that uplink transmission needs to be performed using the time-frequency resources contended in the time-frequency resource # a (i.e., time unit #1 to time unit # N).

Or, for example, the starting position of the time-frequency resource # a may have a corresponding relationship with a time-frequency resource used by the network device for downlink transmission, for example, when the terminal device # a needs to perform uplink transmission, a time-domain position that is spaced by a specified number X of symbols after the downlink transmission currently performed by the network device is ended (or after the last symbol used by the downlink transmission currently performed by the network device) may be used as the starting position of the time-frequency resource # a. The predetermined number X may be defined by a communication system or a communication protocol, or the predetermined number X may be notified to the terminal apparatus # a by the network apparatus, and the present invention is not particularly limited.

The size of the time-frequency resource # a (for example, the size of the time-domain resource, specifically, the total number N of the time units #1 to # N) may correspond to the number of uplink transmissions that the terminal device # a needs to perform, or the size of the time-frequency resource # a may be a predetermined value Y, where the predetermined value Y may be specified by a communication system or a communication protocol, or the predetermined value Y may be notified to the terminal device # a by the network device, which is not particularly limited in the present invention.

The size of the time frequency resource # a in the frequency domain may be arbitrarily set according to needs, and the size of the time frequency resource # a in the frequency domain may be specified by a communication system or a communication protocol, or may be determined by a network device and notified to the terminal device # a, which is not particularly limited in the present invention.

Thus, the terminal device may determine the time-frequency resource # a, and specifically, the terminal device may determine each time unit included in the time domain of the time-frequency resource # a, i.e., time unit #1 to time unit # N. Specifically, the terminal device can determine the total number and positions of time units #1 to # N.

At S220, the terminal device # a may perform contention for the time-frequency resource # a (e.g., time unit #1 to time unit # N) in an LBT manner, for example, to determine the time units that can be used by the terminal device # a from the time-frequency resource # a (e.g., time unit #1 to time unit # N).

It should be noted that, if terminal apparatus # a does not contend for any time cell, uplink transmission is not possible and the uplink reference signal cannot be transmitted, and therefore, when terminal apparatus # a can perform uplink transmission, terminal apparatus # a can contend for at least one time cell among time cells #1 to # N, that is, when terminal apparatus # a can perform uplink transmission, terminal apparatus # a can contend for at least the last time cell among time cells #1 to # N, that is, time cell # N.

Hereinafter, time units contended by the terminal device # A among the time units #1 to # N will be referred to as time units # α to # N, where α is an integer greater than or equal to 1, for ease of understanding and explanation.

It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present invention, the time unit # α -time unit # N may be consecutive, and some adjacent time units of the time unit # α -time unit # N may be separated by one or more time units or symbols, and the present invention is not particularly limited.

In S230, the terminal apparatus # a may determine a time unit (i.e., an example of a first time unit) for carrying the uplink reference signal from the contended time units # α to # N, and hereinafter, for ease of understanding and explanation, the time unit for carrying the uplink reference signal from the time units # α to # N will be referred to as time unit # T.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the uplink Reference Signal includes any one or more of a Demodulation Reference Signal (DMRS) used for uplink data channel Demodulation, a Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) used for uplink channel measurement, and the like.

By way of example and not limitation, in the embodiment of the present invention, the uplink reference signal is located in one time unit, that is, in the embodiment of the present invention, only one time unit of time unit # α -time unit # N may carry the uplink reference signal, for example, the uplink reference signal may be used for demodulation of data in each of time unit # α -time unit # N, where the uplink reference signal includes the same number of reference signal sequences as the maximum number of data transmission in time unit # α -time unit # N, for example, the maximum number of data transmission in time unit # α -time unit # N is 2, and then the uplink reference signal includes 2 reference signal sequences.

Alternatively, in the embodiment of the present invention, the uplink reference signal may be located in multiple time units, that is, in the embodiment of the present invention, multiple time units in time unit # α -time unit # N may carry the uplink reference signal, for example, the uplink reference signal in one time unit may be used for demodulation of data in a part of time units in time unit # α -time unit # N, or the uplink reference signals in multiple time units may be jointly used for channel estimation and demodulation of data in each of time unit # α -time unit # N.

By way of example and not limitation, multiple uplink reference signals may be carried over multiple symbols belonging to the same time unit. For example, the demodulation reference signal and the sounding reference signal are simultaneously carried on the same time unit, where the demodulation reference signal and the sounding reference signal are located on different symbols.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the time unit # T may be the time unit # α (i.e., case 1), or the time unit # T may be the time unit # N (i.e., case 2), and the above two cases will be described in detail below.

Case 1

Specifically, as shown in fig. 3, in the embodiment of the present invention, as a rule for determining the time unit # T, the following rule #1 may be cited.

Rule #1 this time unit # T may be the first time unit (in chronological order) that terminal apparatus # a can compete for among time units #1 to # N, i.e., time unit # α.

By way of example and not limitation, for example, the rule #1 may be specified by a communication system or a communication protocol, or the rule #1 may be input by a user to the terminal device # a, or the rule #1 may be configured in the terminal device # a by a manufacturer or a telecommunications carrier.

For another example, the rule #1 may be determined by the terminal apparatus # a based on indication information (e.g., first indication information or second indication information) from the network apparatus.

Specifically, in the embodiment of the present invention, the network device may transmit, to the terminal device # a, the indication information of the rule #1 (i.e., an example of the first indication information), or the indication information for instructing the terminal device # a to transmit, as the time unit # T, the first time unit (i.e., the time unit # α) which can be contended (in chronological order) by the terminal device # a among the time units #1 to # N (i.e., another example of the first indication information).

Thus, terminal apparatus # a can determine that time unit # T is determined using rule #1 based on the first indication information, that is, terminal apparatus # a can take, as time unit # T, the first time unit (i.e., time unit # α) that terminal apparatus # a can compete for (in chronological order) in time unit #1 to time unit # N based on the first indication information.

Alternatively, in the embodiment of the present invention, the network device may be configured to instruct the terminal device # a to transmit the first time unit (i.e., time unit #1) of the time units #1 to # N (in chronological order) to the terminal device # a as the instruction information (i.e., an example of the second instruction information) of the time unit # T.

Since terminal apparatus # a cannot ensure that it can compete for time unit #1, when terminal apparatus # a receives the second indication information, terminal apparatus # a may determine that time unit # T is determined using rule #1, that is, when terminal apparatus # a receives the second indication information, terminal apparatus # a may take, as time unit # T, the first time unit (i.e., time unit # α) that terminal apparatus # a can compete for (in chronological order) from time unit #1 to time unit # N.

By way of example and not limitation, in the embodiment of the present invention, the network device may determine a possibility (e.g., a probability) that the terminal device # a can compete for one or more time units (e.g., a first time unit in time order among the time units #1 to # N) located at the front end among the time units #1 to # N (in time order), and issue the first indication information or the second indication information to the terminal device # a when the network device determines that the possibility (e.g., the probability) is large.

Also, by way of example and not limitation, the network device may determine the magnitude of the above-described likelihood in the following manner.

Specifically, the network device may determine whether one or more time units among the time unit #1 to the time unit # N belong to the MCOT used by the network device, and if the determination result is yes, the network device may determine that the terminal device # a is more likely to be able to compete for one or more time units (in chronological order) located at the front end among the time unit #1 to the time unit # N (for example, the first time unit in chronological order among the time unit #1 to the time unit # N), and thus, the network device may issue the first indication information or the second indication information to the terminal device # a.

That is, if the network device determines that one or more time units among the time unit #1 to the time unit # N belong to the MCOT used by the network device, the network device may issue the first indication information or the second indication information to the terminal device # a.

It should be understood that the above-listed method and process of the network device determining whether to issue the first indication information or the second indication information are only exemplary illustrations, the present invention is not limited thereto, for example, the network device may also determine whether the number of time units for which time unit #1 to time unit # N belong to the MCOT used by the network device is greater than or equal to a preset threshold #1, if the determination result is "yes", the network device may determine that the terminal device # a has a high possibility of being able to compete for one or more time units (for example, the first time unit in time sequence among time unit #1 to time unit # N) located at the front end (in time sequence) among time unit #1 to time unit # N, thus, the network device can issue the first indication information or the second indication information to the terminal device # a. The threshold #1 may be a value defined by a communication system or a communication protocol, or may be set in the network device by a manufacturer or a telecommunications carrier, and the present invention is not particularly limited.

For example, the network device may determine whether all of the time units #1 to # N belong to the MCOT used by the network device, and if the determination result is "yes", the network device may determine that the terminal device will use a resource contention manner having a higher priority, and may determine that there is a high possibility that the terminal device # a can contend for one or more time units (for example, a first time unit in the time sequence) located at the front end among the time units #1 to # N (in the time sequence), so that the network device may issue the first indication information or the second indication information to the terminal device # a.

When a part or all of time units in a first time-frequency resource terminal allocated to a terminal device by a network device belong to an MCOT used by the network device, the terminal device has a high possibility of competing to a first time unit in the first time-frequency resource. For example, the network device may determine the start time unit of the uplink transmission by detecting the presence of the uplink reference signal.

In addition, in the case that the time cell # α includes multiple symbols, the terminal apparatus # a may further determine the symbol used for carrying the uplink reference signal in the time cell # α.

By way of example and not limitation, in the case where the time cell # T may be time cell # α, if the time cell # α includes a plurality of symbols, a case may occur where the symbols in time cell # α that terminal device # a contends for are only part of the symbols in time cell # α, that is, a case may occur where terminal device # a cannot contend for one or more symbols located at the front (in chronological order) in time cell # α.

In this regard, in this embodiment of the present invention, the terminal apparatus # a may use (or contend for) the first symbol that the terminal apparatus # a can use in the time unit # α as the symbol carrying the uplink reference signal.

It should be understood that the above-listed method and procedure for terminal apparatus # a to determine a symbol for carrying an uplink reference signal are only exemplary, and the present invention is not limited thereto, for example, in case that terminal apparatus # a contends for a plurality of symbols in time unit # α, terminal apparatus # a may take any one or more symbols of the plurality of symbols as a symbol for carrying an uplink reference signal.

By way of example and not limitation, in the case that the time cell # T may be time cell # α, if the time cell # α includes multiple symbols, the first symbol in the time cell # α is used to carry the uplink reference signal.

By way of example and not limitation, in the case that the time cell # T may be time cell # α, if the time cell # α includes multiple symbols, the last symbol in the time cell # α is used to carry the uplink reference signal.

By way of example and not limitation, in the case that the time unit # T may be time unit # α, if the time unit # α includes a plurality of symbols, the position of the symbol used to carry the uplink reference signal in the time unit # α is signaled by the network device to the terminal device # a or is a value specified by the communication system or communication protocol.

Case 2

Specifically, as shown in fig. 4, in the embodiment of the present invention, as a rule for determining the time unit # T, the following rule #2 may be cited.

Rule # 2: the time unit # T may be the last time unit (in time order) among the time units #1 to # N, i.e., the time unit # N.

By way of example and not limitation, for example, the rule #2 may be specified by a communication system or a communication protocol, or the rule #2 may be input by a user to the terminal device # a, or the rule #2 may be configured in the terminal device # a by a manufacturer or a telecommunications carrier.

For another example, the rule #2 may be determined by the terminal apparatus # a based on indication information (e.g., third indication information) from the network apparatus.

Specifically, in the embodiment of the present invention, the network device may transmit the indication information of the rule #2 (i.e., an example of the third indication information), or the indication information (i.e., another example of the third indication information) for instructing the terminal device # a to transmit the last time unit (i.e., time unit # N) of the time units #1 to # N (in chronological order) as the time unit # T to the terminal device # a.

Thus, the terminal apparatus # a can determine that the time unit # T is determined using the rule #2 based on the third indication information, that is, the terminal apparatus # a can take the last time unit (i.e., time unit # N) of the time units #1 to # N (in chronological order) as the time unit # T based on the third indication information.

By way of example and not limitation, in the embodiment of the present invention, the network device may determine a possibility (e.g., a probability) that the terminal device # a can compete for one or more time units (e.g., a first time unit in time order among the time units #1 to # N) located at the front end among the time units #1 to # N (in time order), and issue the third indication information to the terminal device # a when the network device determines that the possibility (e.g., the probability) is small.

Specifically, the network device may determine whether one or more time units among the time unit #1 to the time unit # N do not belong to the MCOT used by the network device, and if the determination result is "yes", the network device may determine that the terminal device # a is less likely to be able to compete for one or more time units (in chronological order) located at the front end among the time unit #1 to the time unit # N (for example, the first time unit in chronological order among the time unit #1 to the time unit # N), and thus, the network device may issue the third indication information to the terminal device # a.

That is, if the network device determines that one or more time units among the time unit #1 to the time unit # N do not belong to the MCOT used by the network device, the network device may issue the third indication information to the terminal device # a.

It should be understood that the above-listed method and procedure for the network device to determine whether to issue the third indication information are only exemplary, and the present invention is not limited thereto, for example, the network device may also determine whether the number of time units, of which the time units #1 to # N do not belong to the MCOT used by the network device, is greater than or equal to the preset threshold #2, and if the determination result is "yes", the network device may determine that the terminal device # a is less likely to be able to compete for one or more time units (for example, the first time unit in the time sequence of the time units #1 to # N) located at the front end among the time units #1 to # N, so that the network device may issue the third indication information to the terminal device # a. The threshold #2 may be a value defined by a communication system or a communication protocol, or may be set in the network device by a manufacturer or a telecommunications carrier, and the present invention is not particularly limited.

For example, the network device may determine whether all of the time units #1 to # N do not belong to the MCOT used by the network device, and if the determination result is "yes", the network device may determine that the terminal device will use a resource contention manner having a lower priority, and may determine that there is a low possibility that the terminal device # a can contend for one or more time units (e.g., a first time unit in the time sequence) located at the front end among the time units #1 to # N (in the time sequence), and thus, the network device may issue the third indication information to the terminal device # a.

When part or all of the time units in the first time-frequency resource terminal allocated to the terminal equipment by the network equipment do not belong to the MCOT used by the network equipment, the terminal equipment has low possibility of competing to the time unit at the front end in the first time-frequency resource.

In addition, in the case that the time unit # N includes a plurality of symbols, the terminal apparatus # a may further determine a symbol for carrying an uplink reference signal in the time unit # N.

By way of example and not limitation, in the case where the time unit # T may be the time unit # N, if the time unit # N includes a plurality of symbols, there may occur a case where the symbols in the time unit # N to which the terminal apparatus # a competes are only partial symbols in the time unit # N, that is, a case where the terminal apparatus # a cannot compete for one or more symbols located at the front (in chronological order) in the time unit # N.

In this regard, in this embodiment of the present invention, the terminal apparatus # a may use (or contend for) the first symbol that the terminal apparatus # a can use in the time unit # N as the symbol carrying the uplink reference signal.

It should be understood that the above-listed method and procedure for determining the symbol for carrying the uplink reference signal by the terminal device # a are only exemplary, and the present invention is not limited thereto, for example, in the case that the terminal device # a contends for a plurality of symbols in the time unit # N, the terminal device # a may take any one or more symbols of the plurality of symbols as the symbol for carrying the uplink reference signal.

By way of example and not limitation, in the case where the time unit # T may be time unit # N, if the time unit # N includes a plurality of symbols, the first symbol in the time unit # N is used to carry the uplink reference signal.

By way of example and not limitation, in the case that the time unit # T may be time unit # N, if the time unit # N includes a plurality of symbols, the last symbol in the time unit # N is used to carry the uplink reference signal.

By way of example and not limitation, in the case that the time unit # T may be a time unit # N, if the time unit # N includes a plurality of symbols, the position of the symbol for carrying the uplink reference signal in the time unit # N is signaled to the terminal device # a by the network device or is a value prescribed by the communication system or the communication protocol.

After determining the time unit # T (specifically, the symbol for carrying the uplink reference signal in the time unit # T) as described above, the terminal apparatus # a may transmit the uplink reference signal to the network apparatus in S240 on the time unit # T (specifically, the symbol for carrying the uplink reference signal in the time unit # T).

In addition, in the embodiment of the present invention, when the time unit # T is the time unit # N, the terminal apparatus # a may further transmit the uplink control information to the network apparatus in the time unit # T, so that the uplink reference signal and the uplink control information can be carried in the same time unit, and the network apparatus can reliably obtain the uplink reference signal for decoding or demodulating the uplink control information, thereby improving the reliability of transmission of the uplink control information.

In addition, in the embodiment of the present invention, when the network device and the terminal device # a have an error based on the uplink transmissions of the time units # α to # N, a retransmission process, for example, a hybrid automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) may be performed.

When the time unit # T includes the time unit # α, the procedure of the retransmission process may be similar to the related art.

When the time unit # T only includes the time unit # N, since the uplink reference signal is carried in the last time unit of the time units #1 to # N, the network device cannot determine whether the terminal device # a competes for all of the time units #1 to # N based on the uplink reference signal, or the network device cannot determine the first time unit of the time units #1 to # N that the terminal device # a competes for based on the uplink reference signal, that is, the network device cannot determine the start position of the time unit used by the terminal device # a for uplink transmission based on the uplink reference signal.

In this case, if transmission error occurs, the RV used for retransmission of the uplink data is 0.

That is, when the terminal device sends the uplink reference signal through the last time unit in the first time-frequency resource, the network device cannot determine the starting position of uplink transmission through the uplink reference signal, and thus, when a transmission error occurs, the network device cannot determine whether the transmission error is a transmission error caused by a poor channel condition or a transmission error caused by that the terminal device does not compete for a partial time unit located at the front end in the first time-frequency resource.

Alternatively, if the transmission is in error, the network device may discard the soft bit information of the uplink data in error.

That is, when the terminal device sends the uplink reference signal through the last time unit in the first time-frequency resource, the network device cannot determine the starting position of uplink transmission through the uplink reference signal, and thus, when a transmission error occurs, the network device cannot determine whether the transmission error is a transmission error caused by a poor channel condition or a transmission error caused by the fact that the terminal device does not compete for a part of time units located at the front end in the first time-frequency resource.

In downlink data transmission, in order to enable the terminal device to discover the small cell in the switch state in time and optimize the radio resource management RRM measurement of the terminal device, the network device may configure a Discovery Reference Signal (DRS) to the cell. The DRS is sent in a DRS Measurement Timing Configuration (DMTC) window that occurs periodically and is configured by the network device, and the length of the DMTC window is 6 ms. The DRS is composed of a Primary Synchronization Signal (PSS), a Secondary Synchronization Signal (SSS), a Common Reference Signal (CRS), and may be configured with a Channel State Information Reference Signal (CSI-RS).

There are two cases for transmitting the DRS subframe on the unlicensed spectrum, one case is that the DRS subframe overlaps with one downlink burst transmission in time, and in this case, the DRS subframe can only be subframe 0 or subframe 5, that is, the DRS can only be transmitted on the subframe with subframe number of 0 or 5, and in addition, the PDSCH can also be transmitted on the DRS subframe because the DRS subframe belongs to one downlink burst transmission. Another situation is that there is no overlap between a DRS subframe and one downlink burst transmission in time, and because the importance of the DRS is higher, in this situation, the network device may use a resource contention mode with a higher priority to contend for resources for transmitting the DRS, and the DRS may contend for the first subframe of the resources to transmit in a DMTC window, accordingly, the transmission time of the DRS is limited, and only 12 continuous symbols in the DRS subframe may be occupied, and the PDSCH cannot be transmitted in the DRS subframe. Fig. 5 shows a transmission diagram of a DRS subframe when there is no overlap in time between the DRS subframe and one downlink burst transmission. In order to ensure the continuity of signal transmission over the unlicensed spectrum and prevent other devices from preempting the channel, the gray portion in fig. 5 represents a reservation signal (reservation signal) sent by the network device.

In the prior art, when a DRS subframe and downlink burst transmission are not overlapped in time, DRS and PDSCH cannot be multiplexed and transmitted on the DRS subframe, and a network device may ensure continuity of signal transmission on the DRS subframe by transmitting a reserved signal on the DRS subframe, thereby resulting in a low resource utilization rate on an unlicensed spectrum.

Next, with reference to fig. 6, a transmission process of downlink data according to an embodiment of the present invention is described in detail. Fig. 6 is a schematic interaction diagram of an example of a transmission process of downstream data according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in fig. 6, at S310, the network device determines a second time-frequency resource (e.g., time-frequency resource # B), wherein the second time-frequency resource is a resource on a discovery reference signal, DRS, subframe that does not overlap in time with the first downlink burst transmission.

It is to be understood that the second time-frequency resource may be a resource on an unlicensed frequency band in the frequency domain.

By way of example and not limitation, the DRS subframe is not subframe 0 or subframe 5. That is, in the embodiment of the present invention, multiplexing transmission of the DRS and the downlink data is allowed to be performed on a subframe where a DRS subframe number is not 0 or 5.

At S320, the network device transmits a physical downlink shared channel PDSCH for the terminal device # B (i.e., an example of the terminal device) on the second time-frequency resource.

It should be understood that, in the prior art, when the DRS subframe does not overlap with the first downlink burst transmission in time, the maximum duration available for signal transmission on the DRS subframe is 12 symbols, i.e., symbol 0 to symbol 11, as shown in fig. 5. By way of example and not limitation, in the embodiments of the present invention, the length of the second time-frequency resource in the time domain is less than or equal to 7 symbols. That is, the DRS subframe may be divided into a plurality of sTTI according to the TTI length, and the network device performs scheduling of the PDSCH according to the divided sTTI structure.

By way of example and not limitation, when the TTI length corresponding to the second time-frequency resource is 7 symbols, the DRS subframe may include 2 sTTI, and the corresponding lengths are 7 symbols and 5 symbols, respectively. Accordingly, the network device may schedule time-frequency resource # B1 (i.e., one instance of the second time-frequency resource) for PDSCH transmission on symbols 0-6 and time-frequency resource # B2 (i.e., another instance of the second time-frequency resource) for PDSCH transmission on symbols 7-11.

By way of example and not limitation, when the TTI length corresponding to the second time-frequency resource is 2 symbols, the DRS subframe may include 5 sTTI, with corresponding lengths of 3 symbols, 2 symbols, and 3 symbols, or with corresponding lengths of 2 symbols, 3 symbols, 2 symbols, and 3 symbols, respectively. Accordingly, the network device may schedule PDSCH transmission according to the sTTI structure, which is not described herein again.

By way of example and not limitation, the second time-frequency resource does not include symbols in the DRS subframe in the time domain for transmitting synchronization signals. For example, when performing downlink data scheduling, the network device does not transmit the PDSCH on symbol 5 and symbol 6 in the DRS subframe.

It should be understood that, in the prior art, when DRS is transmitted on any one of subframe 0 to subframe 4, the subframe number (or slot number) used for the DRS sequence generation is subframe 0 (or, the first slot of subframe 0, i.e., slot 0); when DRS is transmitted on any one of subframe 5 to subframe 9, the subframe number (or slot number) used for the DRS sequence generation is subframe 5 (or the first slot of subframe 5, i.e., slot 10). By way of example and not limitation, in an embodiment of the present invention, a subframe number (or slot number) generated by a scrambling code sequence used for the PDSCH scrambling is the same as a subframe number (or slot number) generated by the DRS sequence. For example, when the PDSCH is transmitted on any one of subframe 0 to subframe 4, the subframe number (or slot number) generated by the scrambling sequence for the PDSCH scrambling is subframe 0 (or the first slot of subframe 0, i.e., slot 0); when the PDSCH is transmitted on any of subframes 5-9, the scrambling sequence used for the PDSCH scrambling generates a subframe number (or slot number) of subframe 5 (or the first slot of subframe 5, i.e., slot 10).

At S330, the terminal device # B receives the PDSCH on the second time-frequency resource.

By way of example and not limitation, in the embodiment of the present invention, the terminal apparatus # B detects a control channel on the DRS subframe, and receives the PDSCH on the second time-frequency resource according to an indication of the control channel.

When the DRS subframe does not overlap with the first downlink burst transmission in time, the resource utilization rate on the unlicensed spectrum may be improved by enabling the network device to allocate the resource on the DRS subframe to the terminal device for downlink data transmission.

Fig. 7 shows a schematic block diagram of an apparatus 400 for receiving an uplink reference signal according to an embodiment of the present invention, where the apparatus 400 for wireless communication may correspond to (for example, may be configured to or may be itself the network device described in the method 200, and each module or unit in the apparatus 400 for wireless communication is respectively configured to execute each action or processing procedure executed by the network device in the method 200, and here, detailed descriptions thereof are omitted to avoid redundancy.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the apparatus 400 may include: the device further comprises a memory, which is communicatively connected to the processor. Wherein, there may be a communication connection between the processor, the memory and the transceiver, the memory may be used to store instructions, and the processor is used to execute the instructions stored by the memory to control the transceiver to transmit information or signals.

Wherein, the processing unit in the apparatus 400 shown in fig. 7 may correspond to the processor, and the communication unit in the apparatus 400 shown in fig. 7 may correspond to the transceiver.

Fig. 8 shows a schematic block diagram of an apparatus 500 for transmitting an uplink reference signal according to an embodiment of the present invention, where the apparatus 500 for wireless communication may correspond to (e.g., may be configured to or is itself the terminal device (e.g., terminal device # a) described in the method 200, and each module or unit in the apparatus 500 for transmitting an uplink reference signal is respectively configured to execute each action or processing procedure executed by the terminal device (e.g., terminal device # a) in the method 200, and here, to avoid redundant description, detailed description thereof is omitted.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the apparatus 500 may include: the device further comprises a memory, which is communicatively connected to the processor. Wherein, there may be a communication connection between the processor, the memory and the transceiver, the memory may be used to store instructions, and the processor is used to execute the instructions stored by the memory to control the transceiver to transmit information or signals.

Wherein the determining unit in the apparatus 500 shown in fig. 8 may correspond to the processor and the communication unit in the apparatus 500 shown in fig. 8 may correspond to the transceiver.

Fig. 9 shows a schematic block diagram of an apparatus 600 for sending downlink data according to an embodiment of the present invention, where the apparatus 600 for wireless communication may correspond to (for example, may be configured to or be itself the network device described in the method 300, and each module or unit in the apparatus 600 for wireless communication is respectively configured to execute each action or processing procedure executed by the network device in the method 300, and here, detailed descriptions thereof are omitted to avoid redundancy.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the apparatus 600 may include: the device may further comprise a memory, which may have a communication connection with the processor. Wherein, there may be a communication connection between the processor, the memory and the transceiver, the memory may be used to store instructions, and the processor is used to execute the instructions stored by the memory to control the transceiver to transmit information or signals.

Wherein the determining unit in the apparatus 600 shown in fig. 9 may correspond to the processor and the communication unit in the apparatus 600 shown in fig. 9 may correspond to the transceiver.

Fig. 10 shows a schematic block diagram of an apparatus 700 for receiving downlink data according to an embodiment of the present invention, where the apparatus 700 for wireless communication may correspond to (e.g., may be configured to or is itself the terminal device (e.g., terminal device # B) described in the method 300, and each module or unit in the apparatus 700 for receiving downlink data is respectively configured to execute each action or processing procedure executed by the terminal device (e.g., terminal device # B) in the method 300, and a detailed description thereof is omitted here for avoiding redundancy.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the apparatus 700 may include: the device may further comprise a memory, which may have a communication connection with the processor. Wherein, there may be a communication connection between the processor, the memory and the transceiver, the memory may be used to store instructions, and the processor is used to execute the instructions stored by the memory to control the transceiver to transmit information or signals.

Wherein, the processing unit in the apparatus 700 shown in fig. 10 may correspond to the processor, and the communication unit in the apparatus 700 shown in fig. 10 may correspond to the transceiver.

It should be noted that the above method embodiments of the present invention may be applied to or implemented by a processor. The processor may be an integrated circuit chip having signal processing capabilities. In implementation, the steps of the above method embodiments may be performed by integrated logic circuits of hardware in a processor or instructions in the form of software. The Processor may be a general purpose Processor, a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an off-the-shelf programmable Gate Array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device, discrete Gate or transistor logic device, discrete hardware component. The various methods, steps and logic blocks disclosed in the embodiments of the present invention may be implemented or performed. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like. The steps of the method disclosed in connection with the embodiments of the present invention may be directly implemented by a hardware decoding processor, or implemented by a combination of hardware and software modules in the decoding processor. The software module may be located in ram, flash memory, rom, prom, or eprom, registers, etc. storage media as is well known in the art. The storage medium is located in a memory, and a processor reads information in the memory and completes the steps of the method in combination with hardware of the processor.

It will be appreciated that the memory in embodiments of the invention may be either volatile memory or nonvolatile memory, or may include both volatile and nonvolatile memory. The non-volatile Memory may be a Read-Only Memory (ROM), a Programmable ROM (PROM), an Erasable PROM (EPROM), an Electrically Erasable PROM (EEPROM), or a flash Memory. Volatile Memory can be Random Access Memory (RAM), which acts as external cache Memory. By way of example, but not limitation, many forms of RAM are available, such as Static random access memory (Static RAM, SRAM), Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), Synchronous Dynamic random access memory (Synchronous DRAM, SDRAM), Double Data rate Synchronous Dynamic random access memory (DDR SDRAM), Enhanced Synchronous SDRAM (ESDRAM), Synchronous Link DRAM (SLDRAM), and direct memory bus RAM (DR RAM). It should be noted that the memory of the systems and methods described herein is intended to comprise, without being limited to, these and any other suitable types of memory.

It should be understood that the term "and/or" herein is merely one type of association relationship that describes an associated object, meaning that three relationships may exist, e.g., a and/or B may mean: a exists alone, A and B exist simultaneously, and B exists alone. In addition, the character "/" herein generally indicates that the former and latter related objects are in an "or" relationship.

It should be understood that, in various embodiments of the present invention, the sequence numbers of the above-mentioned processes do not mean the execution sequence, and the execution sequence of each process should be determined by its function and inherent logic, and should not constitute any limitation on the implementation process of the embodiments of the present invention.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the various illustrative elements and algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as electronic hardware or combinations of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the implementation. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present embodiments.

It is clear to those skilled in the art that, for convenience and brevity of description, the specific working processes of the above-described systems, apparatuses and units may refer to the corresponding processes in the foregoing method embodiments, and are not described herein again.

In the several embodiments provided in the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed system, apparatus and method may be implemented in other ways. For example, the above-described apparatus embodiments are merely illustrative, and for example, the division of the units is only one logical division, and other divisions may be realized in practice, for example, a plurality of units or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted, or not executed. In addition, the shown or discussed mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection may be an indirect coupling or communication connection through some interfaces, devices or units, and may be in an electrical, mechanical or other form.

The units described as separate parts may or may not be physically separate, and parts displayed as units may or may not be physical units, may be located in one place, or may be distributed on a plurality of network units. Some or all of the units can be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of the embodiment.

In addition, functional units in the embodiments of the present invention may be integrated into one processing unit, or each unit may exist alone physically, or two or more units are integrated into one unit.

The functions, if implemented in the form of software functional units and sold or used as a stand-alone product, may be stored in a computer readable storage medium. Based on such understanding, the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention may be essentially implemented or make a contribution to the prior art, or may be implemented in the form of a software product, which is stored in a storage medium and includes several instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device) to execute all or part of the steps of the methods described in the embodiments of the present invention. And the aforementioned storage medium includes: a U-disk, a removable hard disk, a Read-only Memory (ROM), a Random Access Memory (RAM), a magnetic disk or an optical disk, and other various media capable of storing program codes.

The above description is only a specific implementation of the embodiments of the present invention, but the scope of the embodiments of the present invention is not limited thereto, and any person skilled in the art can easily conceive of changes or substitutions within the technical scope of the embodiments of the present invention, and all such changes or substitutions should be covered by the scope of the embodiments of the present invention. Therefore, the protection scope of the embodiments of the present invention shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A method for receiving an uplink reference signal, wherein the method comprises:

The network device allocates a first time-frequency resource for uplink transmission to the terminal device, the first time-frequency resource includes at least two time units in the time domain, and the first time-frequency resource is a contention method adopted by the terminal device. Time-frequency resources used;

The network device receives an uplink reference signal sent by the terminal device, wherein the uplink reference signal is carried in a first time unit, and the first time unit includes the last time unit of the at least two time units, Or, the first time unit includes the first time unit that can be used by the terminal device among the at least two time units.

2 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the first time-frequency resource belongs to an unlicensed frequency band in the frequency domain. 3 .

3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein when the first time unit includes the first time unit that can be used by the terminal device in the at least two time units, the uplink The reference signal is carried in the first symbol that can be used by the terminal device in the first time unit.

4. The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein when the first time unit includes the first time unit that can be used by the terminal device in the at least two time units, in the Before the network device receives the uplink reference signal sent by the terminal device, the method includes:

The network device sends first indication information to the terminal device, where the first indication information is used to instruct the terminal device to use the first time unit that can be used by the terminal device in the at least two time units as the the first unit of time; or

The network device sends second indication information to the terminal device, where the second indication information is used to instruct the terminal device to use the first time unit of the at least two time units as the first time unit.

The method according to claim 4, wherein before the network device sends the first indication information or the second indication information to the terminal device, the method comprises:

The network device determines that at least one time unit in the at least two time units belongs to the maximum channel occupation time MCOT that the network device can use.

6. The method according to claim 1, 2 or 5, wherein when the first time unit includes the last time unit in the at least two time units, the network device receives the Before the uplink reference signal sent by the terminal device, the method includes:

The network device sends third indication information to the terminal device, where the third indication information is used to instruct the terminal device to use the last time unit of the at least two time units as the first time unit.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein before the network device sends the third indication information to the terminal device, the method comprises:

The network device determines that at least one time unit in the at least two time units does not belong to the MCOT that the network device can use.

8. The method according to claim 1, 2, 5 or 7, wherein when the first time unit includes the last time unit in the at least two time units, the method further comprises:

If an error occurs in receiving the uplink data carried on the second time unit, the network device determines that the redundancy version RV used for retransmission of the uplink data is 0, where the second time unit includes all A time unit other than the first time unit among the at least two time units.

9. The method according to claim 1, 2, 5 or 7, wherein when the first time unit includes the last time unit in the at least two time units, the method further comprises:

If an error occurs in receiving the uplink data carried on the second time unit, the network device discards the uplink data, where the second time unit includes the at least two time units except the first time time unit outside the unit.

10. The method according to claim 1, 2, 5 or 7, wherein when the first time unit includes the last time unit in the at least two time units, the method further comprises:

The network device receives the uplink control information sent by the terminal device, where the uplink control information is carried in the last time unit of the at least two time units.

11. A method for sending an uplink reference signal, wherein the method comprises:

The terminal device determines a first time-frequency resource allocated by the network device for uplink transmission, the first time-frequency resource includes at least two time units in the time domain, and the first time-frequency resource is the terminal device using the contention The time-frequency resources used by the method;

The terminal device determines a first time unit from the at least two time units, wherein the first time unit includes the last time unit in the at least two time units, or the first time unit Including the first time unit that can be used by the terminal device in the at least two time units;

The terminal device sends the uplink reference signal in the first time unit.

The method according to claim 11, wherein the first time-frequency resource belongs to an unlicensed frequency band in the frequency domain.

13. The method according to claim 11 or 12, wherein when the first time unit includes the first time unit that can be used by the terminal device in the at least two time units, the uplink The reference signal is carried in the first symbol that can be used by the terminal device in the first time unit.

14. The method according to claim 11 or 12, wherein the terminal device determines the first time unit from the at least two time units, comprising:

The terminal device receives the first indication information sent by the network device, where the first indication information is used to instruct the terminal device to use the first time unit in the at least two time units that the terminal device can use As the first time unit, the terminal device uses, according to the first indication information, the first time unit that can be used by the terminal device in the at least two time units as the first time unit; or

The terminal device receives second indication information sent by the network device, where the second indication information is used to instruct the terminal device to use the first time unit of the at least two time units as the first time unit , the terminal device uses, according to the second indication information, the first time unit that can be used by the terminal device in the at least two time units as the first time unit.

15. The method according to claim 14, wherein the first indication information or the second indication information is when the network device determines that at least one time unit in the at least two time units belongs to the It is sent after the maximum channel occupation time MCOT that the network device can use.

16. The method according to claim 11, 12 or 15, wherein the terminal device determines the first time unit from the at least two time units, comprising:

The terminal device receives third indication information sent by the network device, where the third indication information is used to instruct the terminal device to use the last time unit of the at least two time units as the first time unit ;

The terminal device uses the last time unit of the at least two time units as the first time unit according to the third indication information.

17 . The method according to claim 16 , wherein the third indication information is when the network device determines that at least one time unit in the at least two time units is not usable by the network device. 18 . Sent after MCOT.

18. The method according to claim 11, 12, 15 or 17, wherein when the first time unit includes the last time unit of the at least two time units, the method further comprises:

The terminal device sends uplink control information to the network device on the last time unit of the at least two time units.

19. An apparatus for receiving an uplink reference signal, wherein the apparatus comprises:

a processing unit, configured to allocate a first time-frequency resource for uplink transmission to a terminal device, the first time-frequency resource includes at least two time units in the time domain, and the first time-frequency resource is the terminal device Time-frequency resources used in a competitive manner;

a communication unit, configured to receive an uplink reference signal sent by the terminal device, wherein the uplink reference signal is carried in a first time unit, and the first time unit includes the last time unit of the at least two time units , or, the first time unit includes the first time unit that can be used by the terminal device in the at least two time units.

The apparatus according to claim 19, wherein the first time-frequency resource belongs to an unlicensed frequency band in the frequency domain.

21. The apparatus according to claim 19 or 20, wherein when the first time unit includes the first time unit in the at least two time units that can be used by the terminal device, the uplink The reference signal is carried in the first symbol that can be used by the terminal device in the first time unit.

22. The apparatus according to claim 19 or 20, wherein when the first time unit includes the first time unit that can be used by the terminal device in the at least two time units, the communication The unit is further configured to send first indication information to the terminal device, where the first indication information is used to instruct the terminal device to use the first time unit that can be used by the terminal device in the at least two time units as the the first unit of time; or

is configured to send second indication information to the terminal device, where the second indication information is used to instruct the terminal device to use the first time unit in the at least two time units as the first time unit.

23. The apparatus according to claim 22, wherein the processing unit is further configured to determine that at least one time unit in the at least two time units belongs to the maximum channel occupation time MCOT that the apparatus can use.

24. The apparatus according to claim 19, 20 or 23, wherein when the first time unit includes the last time unit in the at least two time units, the communication unit is further configured to send the The terminal device sends third indication information, where the third indication information is used to instruct the terminal device to use the last time unit of the at least two time units as the first time unit.

25. The apparatus according to claim 24, wherein the processing unit is further configured to determine that at least one time unit in the at least two time units does not belong to the MCOT that the apparatus can use.

26. The apparatus according to claim 19, 20, 23 or 25, wherein when the first time unit includes the last time unit in the at least two time units, the processing unit further uses If an error occurs in the reception of the uplink data carried on the second time unit, determining that the redundancy version RV used for the retransmission of the uplink data is 0, wherein the second time unit includes the at least two A time unit other than the first time unit in the time unit.

27. The apparatus according to claim 19, 20, 23 or 25, wherein when the first time unit includes the last time unit in the at least two time units, the processing unit further uses the If an error occurs in the reception of the uplink data carried on the second time unit, the uplink data is discarded, wherein the second time unit includes the at least two time units except the first time unit. time unit.

28. The apparatus according to claim 19, 20, 23 or 25, wherein when the first time unit includes the last time unit in the at least two time units, the communication unit further uses the for receiving the uplink control information sent by the terminal device, the uplink control information is carried in the last time unit of the at least two time units.

29. An apparatus for sending an uplink reference signal, wherein the apparatus comprises:

a determining unit, configured to determine a first time-frequency resource allocated by the network device for uplink transmission, the first time-frequency resource includes at least two time units in the time domain, and the first time-frequency resource is the device A time-frequency resource used in a competitive manner; for determining a first time unit from the at least two time units, wherein the first time unit includes the last time unit of the at least two time units, or , the first time unit includes the first time unit that can be used by the device in the at least two time units;

A communication unit, configured to send an uplink reference signal on the first time unit.

30. The apparatus according to claim 29, wherein the first time-frequency resource belongs to an unlicensed frequency band in the frequency domain.

31. The apparatus according to claim 29 or 30, wherein when the first time unit includes the first time unit that can be used by the apparatus in the at least two time units, the uplink reference The signal is carried in the first symbol that the device can use in the first time unit.

32. The apparatus according to claim 29 or 30, wherein the communication unit is further configured to receive first indication information sent by the network device, where the first indication information is used to instruct the apparatus to The first time unit that can be used by the apparatus in the at least two time units is used as the first time unit, and the determining unit is specifically configured to, according to the first indication information, determine the time unit in the at least two time units. the first time unit that the device can use as the first time unit; or

The communication unit is further configured to receive second indication information sent by the network device, where the second indication information is used to instruct the apparatus to use the first time unit in the at least two time units as the first time unit A time unit, where the determining unit is specifically configured to use, according to the second indication information, a first time unit that can be used by the apparatus in the at least two time units as the first time unit.

33. The apparatus according to claim 32, wherein the first indication information or the second indication information is when the network device determines that at least one time unit in the at least two time units belongs to the It is sent after the maximum channel occupation time MCOT that the network device can use.

34. The apparatus according to claim 29, 30 or 33, wherein the communication unit is further configured to receive third indication information sent by the network device, where the third indication information is used to instruct the apparatus Using the last time unit in the at least two time units as the first time unit;

The determining unit is specifically configured to use the last time unit in the at least two time units as the first time unit according to the third indication information.

35. The apparatus according to claim 34, wherein the third indication information is when the network device determines that at least one time unit in the at least two time units does not belong to the network device that can be used Sent after MCOT.

36. The apparatus according to claim 29, 30, 33 or 35, wherein when the first time unit includes the last time unit of the at least two time units, the communication unit further uses the Send uplink control information to the network device on the last time unit of the at least two time units.