Patent Description:
Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Fifth Generation (<NUM>) New Radio - Unlicensed (NR-U) targets efficient spectrum sharing between <NUM> New Radio (NR) and legacy wireless local area networks that operate in unlicensed bands. For NR-U, when a primary cell (PCell) is operating in an unlicensed band, a user equipment (UE) in an idle or inactive state may need to perform a cell reselection in the unlicensed band. <CIT> discloses a cellular communication system in which a cell may support one or more PLMNs and can send a PLMN table in a first message on a broadcast channel and an index to the table in a second message on the broadcast channel. <CIT> discloses a UE for performing PLMN search by determining the paging schedule for the serving cell and performing a PLMN search in between paging occasions.

Reference(s) to "embodiment(s)" throughout the description which are not under the scope of the appended claims merely represent possible exemplary executions and are not part of the present invention.

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

While the features described herein may be susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and are herein described in detail.

The following detailed description refers to the accompanying drawings. The same reference numbers may be used in different drawings to identify the same or similar elements. In the following description, for purposes of explanation and not limitation, specific details are set forth such as particular structures, architectures, interfaces, techniques, etc. in order to provide a thorough understanding of the various aspects of various embodiments However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art having the benefit of the present disclosure that the various aspects of the various embodiments may be practiced in other examples that depart from these specific details. In certain instances, descriptions of well-known devices, circuits, and methods are omitted so as not to obscure the description of the various embodiments with unnecessary detail. For the purposes of the present document, the phrase "A or B" means (A). (B), or (A and B).

The following is a glossary of terms that may be used in this disclosure:.

The term "circuitry" as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes hardware components such as an electronic circuit, a logic circuit a processor (shared, dedicated, or group) and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a field-programmable device (FPD) (e.g., a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a programmable logic device (PLD), a complex PLD (CPLD), a high-capacity PLD (HCPLD), a structured ASIC, or a programmable SoC), digital signal processors (DSPs), etc., that are configured to provide the described functionality. In some embodiments, the circuitry may execute one or more software or firmware programs to provide at least some of the described functionality. The term "circuitry" may also refer to a combination of one or more hardware elements (or a combination of circuits used in an electrical or electronic system) with the program code used to carry out the functionality of that program code. In these embodiments, the combination of hardware elements and program code may be referred to as a particular type of circuitry.

The term "processor circuitry" as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes circuitry capable of sequentially and automatically carrying out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations, or recording, storing, and/or transferring digital data. The term "processor circuitry" may refer to one or more application processors, one or more baseband processors, a physical central processing unit (CPU), a single-core processor, a dual-core processor, a triple-core processor, a quad-core processor, and/or any other device capable of executing or otherwise operating computer-executable instructions, such as program code, software modules, and/or functional processes. The terms "application circuitry" and/or "baseband circuitry" may be considered synonymous to, and may be referred to as. "processor circuitry.

The term "interface circuitry" as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes circuitry that enables the exchange of information between two or more components or devices. The term "interface circuitry" may refer to one or more hardware interfaces, for example, buses, I/O interfaces, peripheral component interfaces, network interface cards, and/or the like.

The term "user equipment" or "UE" as used herein refers to a device with radio communication capabilities and may describe a remote user of network resources in a communications network. The term "user equipment" or "UE" may be considered synonymous to, and may be referred to as, client, mobile, mobile device, mobile terminal, user terminal, mobile unit, mobile station, mobile user, subscriber, user, remote station, access agent, user agent, receiver, radio equipment, reconfigurable radio equipment, reconfigurable mobile device, etc. Furthermore, the term "user equipment" or "UE"' may include any type of wireless/wired device or any computing device including a wireless communications interface.

The term "network element" as used herein refers to physical or virtualized equipment and/or infrastructure used to provide wired or wireless communication network services. The term "network element" may be considered synonymous to and/or referred to as a networked computer, networking hardware, network equipment, network node, router, switch, hub, bridge, radio network controller, RAN device, RAN node, gateway, server, virtualized VNF, NFVI, and/or the like.

The term "computer system" as used herein refers to any type interconnected electronic devices, computer devices, or components thereof. Additionally, the term "computer system" and/or "system" may refer to various components of a computer that are communicatively coupled with one another. Furthermore, the term "computer system" and/or "system" may refer to multiple computer devices and/or multiple computing systems that are communicatively coupled with one another and configured to share computing and/or networking resources.

The term "appliance," "computer appliance," or the like, as used herein refers to a computer device or computer system with program code (e.g., software or firmware) that is specifically designed to provide a specific computing resource. A "virtual appliance" is a virtual machine image to be implemented by a hypervisor-equipped device that virtualizes or emulates a computer appliance or otherwise is dedicated to provide a specific, computing resource.

The term "resource" as used herein refers In a physical or virtual device, a physical or virtual component within a computing environment, and/or a physical or virtual component within a particular device, such as computer devices, mechanical devices, memory space, processor/CPU time, processor/CPU usage, processor and accelerator loads, hardware time or usage, electrical power, input/output operations, ports or network sockets, channel/link allocation, throughput, memory usage, storage, network, database and applications, workload units, and/or the like. A "hardware resource" may refer to compute, storage, and/or network resources provided by physical hardware element(s). A "virtualized resource" may refer to compute, storage, and/or network resources provided by virtualization infrastructure In an application, device, system, etc. The term "network resource" or "communication resource" may refer to resources that are accessible by computer devices/systems via a communications network. The term "system resources" may refer to any kind of shared entities to provide services, and may include computing and/or network resources. System resources may be considered as a set of coherent functions, network data objects or services, accessible through a server where such system resources reside on a single host or multiple hosts and are clearly identifiable.

The term "channel" as used herein refers to any transmission medium, either tangible or intangible, which is used to communicate data or a data stream. The term "channel" may be synonymous with and/or equivalent to "communications channel," "data communications channel," "transmission channel "data transmission channel," "access channel," "data access channel," "link," "data link," "carrier," "radiofrequency carrier," and/or any other like term denoting a pathway or medium through which data is communicated. Additionally, the term "link" as used herein refers to a connection between two devices through a RAT for the purpose of transmitting and receiving information.

The terms "instantiate," "instantiation," and the like as used herein refers to the creation of an instance. An "instance" also refers to a concrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during execution of program code.

The terms "coupled," "communicatively coupled," along with derivatives thereof are used herein. The term "coupled" may mean two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with one another, may mean that two or more elements indirectly contact each other but still cooperate or interact with each other, and/or may mean that one or more other elements are coupled or connected between the elements that are said to be coupled with each other. The term "directly coupled" may mean that two or more elements are in direct contact with one another. The term "communicatively coupled" may mean that two or more elements may be in contact with one another by a means of communication including through a wire or other interconnect connection, through a wireless communication channel or ink, and/or the like.

The term "information element" refers to a structural element containing one or more fields. The term "field" refers to individual contents of an information element, or a data element that contains content.

<FIG> illustrates a network environment <NUM> in accordance with some embodiments. The network environment <NUM> may include a UE <NUM> and a plurality of access nodes (ANs), for example, AN <NUM>, AN <NUM>, and AN <NUM>,.

Each AN may provide one more serving cells to provide cellular service to connected UEs. For example, AN <NUM> may provide serving cell <NUM>, AN <NUM> may provide serving cell <NUM>, and AN <NUM> may provide serving cell <NUM>. While one serving cell is shown per AN, in various embodiments each AN may provide a plurality of serving cells including a primary cell (PCell) and one or more secondary cells (SCells). In some embodiments, the serving cells may have carrier frequencies located in an unlicensed portion of the spectrum and the network environment may operate, at least partially, in an NR-U system.

The UE <NUM> may include a radio resource control (RRC) state machine that performs operations related to a variety of RRC procedures including, for example, paging, RRC connection establishment, RRC. connection reconfiguration, and RRC connection release. The RRC state machine may be implemented by protocol processing circuitry. see, for example, baseband circuitry <NUM> and <NUM> of <FIG> and <FIG>.

The RRC state machine may transition the UE into one of a number of RRC states (or "modes") including, for example, a connected state (RRC connected), an inactive state (RRC inactive), and an idle state (RRC idle). The UE <NUM> may start in RRC idle when it first camps on a <NUM> cell, for example, cell <NUM>. This may be after the UE <NUM> has been switched on or after an inter-system cell reselection from a Long Term Evolution (LTE) cell.

To engage in active communications, the RRC state machine may transition the UE <NUM> from RRC idle to RRC connected by performing an RRC setup procedure to establish a logical connection <NUM>, for example, an RRC connection <NUM>, with the AN <NUM>. In RRC connected, the UE <NUM> may be configured with at least one signaling radio bearer (SRB) for signaling (for example, control messages) with the AN <NUM>; and one or more data radio bearers (DRBs) for data transmission.

When the UE is less actively engaged in network communications, the RRC state machine may transition the UE <NUM> from RRC connected to RRC inactive using an RRC release procedure. The RRC inactive state may allow the UE <NUM> to reduce power consumption as compared to RRC connected, but will still allow the UE <NUM> to quickly transition back to RRC connected to transfer application data or signaling messages.

While in RRC idle or RRC inactive, the RRC state machine may manage mobility by performing a cell reselection in the event signal metrics from the serving cell <NUM> fall below predetermined thresholds, in general, the UE <NUM> may measure signal metrics from a plurality of neighbor cells and select one or more of the neighbor cells as candidates for the reselection. Candidates of equal priority may be ranked based on signal metrics such as, for example, reference signal receive power (RSRP), reference signal received quality (RSRQ), signal-to-interference plus noise ratio (SINR), etc. The UE <NUM> may select one of the candidate cells, for example, cell <NUM> or <NUM>, as a target cell for cell reselection. If one or more signal metrics from the target cell are over a predetermined threshold for a predetermined period of time, the UE <NUM> may complete the cell reselection.

for NR-U, when the PCell is operating in an unlicensed band, the cell reselection from RRC idle or RRC inactive may be applied by the UE <NUM> in the unlicensed band. In some instances, the neighbor cells operating in the unlicensed band may be from different operators belonging to different public land mobile networks (PLMNs). This may present a challenge for the UE <NUM> to have robust cell reselection in unlicensed bands. For example, if the UE <NUM> reselects to a cell that belongs to a different PLMN in which the UE <NUM> is not registered, the cell reselection would fail. Accordingly, various embodiments describe techniques to improve success rates for cell reselection in NR-U.

In some embodiments, the UE <NUM> may engage in a two-step (or "stage") cell reselection procedure for NR-U. As will be described in more detail below, the second stage, which is optional in some embodiments, may involve checking the PLMN associated with target cell before performing a reselection In the target cell. These embodiments may improve a success rate for UE-side cell re-selection in an unlicensed band, even in the presence of uncoordinated neighboring cells belonging to different PLMNs being in within that band.

Aspects of the embodiments described herein may be implemented through devices or components performing operation flows/algorithmic structures. <FIG> illustrate some operation flows/algorithmic structures in accordance with some embodiments. Some or all of the details of <FIG>. <FIG> may be performed by a UE, for example, UE <NUM> of <FIG> or UEs <NUM> a or 701b of <FIG>; components, for example, baseband circuitry <NUM>/<NUM> of <FIG>/<FIG>, or radio front end modules <NUM>/<NUM> of <FIG>/<FIG>; or processors <NUM>/<NUM> and memory-storage devices <NUM> of <FIG>.

<FIG> illustrates an operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> for a two-stage cell reselection to improve cell reselection performance in accordance with some embodiments.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> includes a first stage <NUM> and a second stage <NUM>. Generally, the first stage <NUM> involves selection of a target cell, while the second stage <NUM> involves a pre-check of the PLMN information of the target cell.

In the first stage <NUM>, at <NUM>, the operation flow;algorithmic structure <NUM> may include detecting and measuring a set of neighboring cell candidates. In various embodiments, the UE may measure or otherwise obtain measurement quality metrics for assessing neighbor cells for cell reselection. These measurement quality metrics may include any combination of, for example, RSRP, RSRQ, SINR, etc..

In some embodiments, the RRC layer may direct lower layers to perform the detecting and measuring of the neighbor cell candidates. For example, a Layer <NUM> (L1) of the UE <NUM> may perform L1 measurements on synchronization signal/physical broadcast channel (SS/PBCH) blocks of neighbor cells Because reselection is to change a serving cell, the L1 measurements may be cell-level measurements, rather than beam-level measurements.

The cell-level measurements may be derived from one or more beam level measurements based on parameters broadcast within a system information block (SIB) <NUM> or SIB <NUM> of source cell for purposes of cell reselection. These parameters may include a number of SS-blocks In average, nrofSS-BlocksTaAverage, which may range from <NUM> - <NUM>, for example, and absolute threshold SS-blocks consolidation, absThreshSS-BlocksCosolidation, which may be a value range from <NUM> - <NUM> mapped onto an RSRP or RSRQ value. The cell level measurement may be defined as a linear average of up nrofSS-BlockToAverage beams that have the strongest measurement results that exceed the absThreshSS-BlocksConsolidation threshold. If less than nrofSS-BlocksToAverange beams exceed the absThreshSS-BlocksConsolidation threshold, only the beams that exceed the threshold may be averaged. If no beams exceed the threshold, the cell level result may be set equal to the strongest beam level result.

In some embodiments, if the UE <NUM> is not configured with nrofSS-BlocksToAverage and absThreshSS-BlocksConsolidation parameters, the UE <NUM> may use the measurement from the strongest beam as the cell level measurement.

The first stage <NUM> may also include, at <NUM>, preselecting the target cell based on the measurement metrics. In various embodiments, the preselection of the target cell may include a preliminary decision of determining that reselection from the current serving cell is to occur and further determining which of a number of candidate neighbor cells will be the target of the cell reselection process (hereinafter "target cell").

In some embodiments, the cell-level L1 measurements collected at <NUM> may be filtered at Layer <NUM> (L3) to detect one or more events related to comparing serving or target cell measurements In various thresholds. These events may include an A2 event, which may be triggered when the serving cell becomes worse than a thresholds an A3 event, which may be triggered when a neighboring cell becomes better than a special cell (for example, the PCell of a master cell group or a secondary cell group) by an offset; or an A4 event, which may be triggered when a neighboring cell becomes better than a threshold.

The second stage <NUM> may include, at <NUM>, decoding a master information block (MIB) and a system information block (SIB) <NUM> of die target cell and extracting PLMN information of the target cell. The target cell may broadcast system information using the MIB and a series of SIBs. Minimum system information (MSI) may be transmitted in the MIB and the SIB1, with the SIB1 specifically carrying remaining minimum system information (RMSI). The remaining SIBs, for example SIBs <NUM> -<NUM>, may carry other system information (OSI).

The MIB may be transmitted using the BCCH logical channel, BCH transport channel, and PBCH physical channel. The SIBI may be transmitted using the BCCH logical channe, the DL-SCM transport channel, and the PDSCH physical channel.

The UE <NUM> may acquire the MIB based on information provided by current serving cell (in, for example, a S1B4 transmission) regarding global synchronization channel numbers (GSCN) of neighbor cells. In embodiments in which the UE <NUM> does not have a current serving cell, the MIB may be acquired by scanning a set of GSCNs and discovering an SS/PBCH block. The MIB may be found directly on the PBCH without relying on any resource allocations on the PDCCH. The UE <NUM> may decode the MIB to discover information regarding a control resource set (CORESET) and search space used by the PDCCH when making a resource allocation for the SIBI in the PDSCH. In this manner, the UE <NUM> may determine the signaling parameters (for example, time offset, frequency (for example, component carrier), transmission mode, etc.) for receiving the SIB1.

Upon receiving and decoding the SIBI, the UE <NUM> may extract the PLMN information from the decoded SIB1 bits. The PLMN information may be included in a cell access related information, cellAccessRelatedInfo, information element (IE) in the SIB1. The cellAccestsRelatedInfo IE may include PLMN identities associated with the broadcasting cell. Each PLMN identity may be defined by its mobile country code (MCC) and mobile network code (MNC). Individual PLMN identities may be associated with a tracking area code (TAC), RAN area code (RANAC), cell identity, and flag to indicate whether or not the cell is reserved for operator use.

The UE <NUM> may compare the PLMN information from the SIB1 of the target cell to PLMN information associated with the serving cell. In some embodiments, the PLMN associated with the serving cell may have been previously acquired from a SIB1 transmitted by the serving gNB.

If the UE <NUM> determines, at <NUM>, that a PLMN identity from the PLMN information of the target cell matches, for example, is identical to, a PLMN identity from the PLMN information of the source cell, the operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may advance to applying a cell reselection to the target cell at <NUM>. In some embodiments, this may include, among other things, the UE transmitting a random access channel to the gNB of the target cell to access the target cell and establish an RRC connection.

If the UE <NUM> determines, at <NUM>, that a PLMN identity from the PLMN information of the target cell does not match, for example, is not identical to, a PLMN identity from the PLMN information of the source cell, the operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may revert to the first stage <NUM>, for example, detecting and measuring a set of neighboring cell candidates at <NUM>. In some embodiments, if the measurement metrics obtained at <NUM> have not expired, the operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may revert back to preselecting another target cell at <NUM> based on the previously obtained information.

<FIG> illustrates an operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> for a one- or two-stage cell reselection to improve cell reselection in accordance with some embodiments.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may include a first stage <NUM> and a second stage <NUM>. The second stage <NUM> may be an option that will be performed in some scenarios.

Similar to like-named operations of the first stage <NUM>, the first stage <NUM> may include detecting and measuring a set of neighboring cell candidates at <NUM> and preselecting the target cell based on the measurement metrics at <NUM>.

Following the first stage <NUM>, the operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may include, at <NUM>, decoding the MIB of the target cell and extracting SIB1 configuration. As discussed above, the MIB may include information related to the SIB1 configuration including, for example, timing and other location information of the SIB1 transmissions.

At <NUM>, the operation fiow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may include determining whether the SIB1 is co-located with a DRS of the target cell. The DRS may correspond to the SS/PBCH blocks that the UE <NUM> processes for the purposes of, for example, acquiring the MIB, performing cell measurements and discovery, etc. If the SIB1 is co-located with the DRS, for example, in the DRS block or within a predefined time interval from the DRS block, the UE <NUM> may also proceed with SIB1 decoding quickly after having received the DRS from the associated candidate cell. Thus, if it is determined at <NUM>, that the SIB1 is co-located with the DRS of the target cell, the operation fiow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may proceed to the second stage <NUM>.

The second stage <NUM> may include decoding the SIB1 of the target cell and extracting PLMN information of the target cell, at <NUM>, and comparing the extracted PLMN information of the target cell with the PLMN information of the source cell at <NUM>. following extraction of the PLMN information, the UE may determine whether a PLMN ID associated with target cell is the same as PLMN ID associated with the source cell at <NUM> and either advance to applying the cell reselection at <NUM> or loop back to operations of the first stage <NUM>. The operations at <NUM>, <NUM>, and <NUM> may be similar to respective operations described in <NUM>, <NUM>, and <NUM> of <FIG>.

If the SIB1 is not co-located with the DRS of the target cell, for example, if the SIB1 allocation is further than a predefined timing threshold from the DRS block, it may be that the added assurance of the pre-selection PLMN check may not be worth the extra time needed to also decode the SIB1. Thus, in some embodiments, if it is determined, at <NUM>, that the SIB1 is not co-located with the DRS of the target cell, the operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may skip the second stage <NUM> to bypass the extra time needed to decode the SIB1 and proceed directly to applying the reselection at <NUM>. In the event that the target cell is not associated with a compatible PLMN, the reselection may fail after the target cell does not respond to the UE's random access channel transmission. After which, the UE may attempt reselection with another candidate cell.

<FIG> illustrates an operation fiow/algorithmic structure <NUM> for a two-stage cell reselection in accordance with some embodiments.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may include, at <NUM>, measuring one or more quality metrics for a set of candidate cells that are candidates for cell re-selection in one or more unlicensed bands of an NR-U network. The one or more quality metrics, as discussed above, may include, for example, one or more of an RSRP, an RSRQ, or an SINR.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may further include, at <NUM>, selecting a first candidate cell of the set of candidate cells based on the measured one or more quality metrics. For example, the candidate cell with the quality metrics that indicate the highest quality among the set of candidate cells may be selected.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may further include, at <NUM>, determining a first PLMN associated with the first candidate cell. The first PLMN may be determined by decoding SIB1 of the first candidate cell to extract PLMN information. In some embodiments, the UE may decode an MIB of the first candidate cell, and may decode the SIB based on information in the MIB as discussed above.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may further include, at <NUM>, comparing the first PLMN a current PLMN of a source cell. In some embodiments, the target or source cell may be associated with more than one PLMN, For example, a cell may be associated with a plurality of PLMNs and the cell may broadcast a list of the IDs of the PLMNs in its SIB1 transmissions. In these embodiments, the comparing at <NUM> may include determining whether any PLMNs associated with the first candidate cell is also associated with the source cell.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may further include, at <NUM>, determining whether to perform cell re-selection from the source cell to the first candidate cell based on the comparison at <NUM>. For example, cell re-selection may be performed if the first PLMN is the same as the current PLMN (or if a PLMN associated with the first candidate cell is also associated with the source cell). If the first PLMN is different from the current PLMN (or if a PLMN associated with the first candidate cell is not also associated with the source cell), the cell re-selection to the first candidate cell may not be performed. Instead, the UE may select a second candidate cell from the set of candidate cells (for example, based on the measured one or more quality metrics and/or updated measurements of the one or more quality metrics). The UE <NUM> may then repeat the operations of <NUM>, <NUM>, and <NUM> for the second candidate cell.

<FIG> illustrates an operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> in accordance with some embodiments.

In some embodiments, the operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may be initiated upon an initial determination regarding the status of a current serving cell. For example, if a quality of the current serving cell, as measured by one or more quality metrics, falls below a predetermined threshold for a predetermined period of time. some or all the operation flow/algorithmic structure may be implemented by a UE.

Once initiated, the operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may include, at <NUM>, selecting a target cell from one or more candidate cells based on a measured quality metric. As discussed above, the UE may measure signals, for example, SS/PBCH signals, from various neighbor cells to determine quality metrics related to, or otherwise based on. RSRP, RSRP, SINR, etc. Based on these metrics, the UE may select one target cell from one or more candidate cells for cell reselection.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may further include, at <NUM>, decoding a MIB to extract SIB1 information related to the target cell. The MIB, which may be transmitted in the PBCH of the target cell, may provide information related to configuration of the SIB (for example, the time/frequency resources on which the SIB1 is transmitted).

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may further include, at <NUM>. determining whether to perform a cell reselection from the source cell to the target call based on the SIB1 information.

In some embodiments, the SIB1 information may simply be location information (for example, time allocation information) of the SIB1. This location information may allow the UE to determine whether or not the SIB1 is co-located with a DRS (or SS/PBCH) of the target cell. To determine whether the SIB1 is co-located with the DRS, the UE may compare the SIB1 time allocation information with the DRS time allocation information. If a difference between the two time allocations is below a predefined threshold, the SIB1 may be considered to be co-located with the DRS. The UE may either pre-check PLMN information or proceed directly to cell reselection based on the determination of whether the SIB1 is co-located with the DRS. This may be similar to that described above with respect to operation <NUM> of <FIG>.

In other embodiments, the SIB1 information upon which the UE bases determination at <NUM> may include additional/alternative information such as, but not limited to, PLMN information extracted from the SIB1 transmission itself. This may be the case if the UE performs a two-stage cell reselection procedure (as shown in <FIG>, for example) or determines that the SIB1 is co-located with the DRS (or SS/PBCH) in the optional two-stage cell reselection procedure (as shown in <FIG>, for example).

Thus, in some embodiments, if the UE detects a first condition (for example, SIB1 not co-located with DRS or both the target and source cells are associated with common PLMN) it may proceed to apply a reselection to the target cell. If the first condition relates to the co-location of the SIB1/DRS and is not In some cases, if the first condition is not presentbased on system information, that a first condition is (for example, th. The first condition may be t and may apply a reselection to a target cell.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may include, at <NUM>, initiating a cell reselection procedure. In some embodiments, the procedure may be initiated, from an RRC idle or RRC inactive state, when the UE detects that one or more quality metrics associated with a serving cell are below a predetermined threshold. In some embodiments, the metrics may also need to be below the threshold for a predetermined period of time for the UE to initiate the cell reselection procedure.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may further include, at <NUM>, selecting a target cell for reselection. The detection of the target cell may be done in a manner similar to the operations described above with respect to <NUM> of <FIG>, for example.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may further include, at <NUM>, acquiring system information related to the target cell. In some embodiments, the system information acquired in this operation may include SIB1 time allocation information acquired from the MIB or PLMN information acquired from the SIB1.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may further include, at <NUM>, detecting a network condition based on the acquired system information. The network condition detected at <NUM> may be the non-co-location of the SIB1 and a DRS of the target cell. In other embodiments, the network condition detected at <NUM> may be that both the source cell and the target cell are associated with a common PLMN. This may be detected by comparing target cell PLMN information (acquired from the SIB1) with source cell PLMN information,.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may further include, at <NUM>, applying the cell reselection based on the detected network condition. Application of the cell reselection at <NUM> may be similar to operations described above with respect to <NUM> of <FIG>.

Turning now to <FIG>, an example architecture of a system <NUM> of a network is illustrated, in accordance with various embodiments. The following description is provided for an example system <NUM> that operates in conjunction with <NUM> or NR system standards as provided by 3GPP technical specifications, for example. However, the example embodiments are not limited in this regard, and the described embodiments may apply to other networks that benefit from the principles described herein, such as future 3GPP systems (e.g., Sixth Generation (<NUM>)) systems or other wireless networks.

As shown by <FIG>, the system <NUM> includes UE 701a and UE 701b (collectively referred to as "UGs <NUM>"). In this example, UEs <NUM> are illustrated as smartphones (e.g., handheld touchscreen mobile computing devices connectable to one or more cellular networks) but may also comprise any mobile or non-mobile computing device, such as consumer electronics devices, cellular phones, smartphones, feature phones, tablet computers, wearable computer devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), pagers, wireless handsets, desktop computers, laptop computers, in-vehicle infotainment (IV1), in-cat entertainment (ICE) devices, an Instrument Cluster (IC), head-up display (HUD) devices, onboard diagnostic (OBD) devices, dashtop mobile equipment (DME), mobile data terminals (MDTs). Electronic Engine Management System (EEMS), electronic/engine control units (ECUs), electronic/engine control modules (ECMs), embedded systems, microcontrollers, control modules, engine management systems (EMS), networked or "smart" appliances, MTC devices, M2M, IoT devices, and/or the like.

In some embodiments, any of the UEs <NUM> may be Internet of Things (IoT) UEs, which may comprise a network access layer designed for low-power IoT applications utilizing short-lived UE connections. An IoT UE can utilize technologies such as M2M or MTC for exchanging data with an MTC server or device via a PLMN, ProSe or D2D communication, sensor networks, or IoT networks. The M2M or MTC exchange of data may be a machine-initiated exchange of data. An IoT network describes interconnecting IoT Ues, which may include uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within the Internet infrastructure), with short-lived connections. The IoT UEs may execute background applications (for example, keep-alive messages, status updates, etc.) to facilitate the connections of the IoT network.

The UEs <NUM> may be configured to connect, for example, communicatively couple, with a Radio Access Network (RAN) <NUM>. In embodiments, the RAN <NUM> may be an NG RAN or a <NUM> RAN. As used herein, the term "NG RAN" or the like may refer to a RAN <NUM> that operates in an NR or <NUM> system <NUM>. The UEs <NUM> utilize connections (or channels) <NUM> and <NUM>, respectively, each of which comprises a physical communications interface or layer.

In this example, the connections <NUM> and <NUM> are illustrated as an air interface to enable communicative coupling, and can be consistent with cellular communications protocols, such as a 3GPP <NUM>/NR protocol or any of the other communications protocols discussed herein. In embodiments, the UEs <NUM> may directly exchange communication data via a ProSe interface <NUM>. The ProSe interface <NUM> may alternatively be referred to as a sidelink (SL) interface <NUM>.

The UE 701b is shown to be configured to access an access point (AP) <NUM> (also referred to as "WLAN node <NUM>," "WLAN <NUM>," "WLAN Termination <NUM>," "WT <NUM>" or the like) via connection <NUM>. The connection <NUM> can comprise a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE <NUM> protocol, wherein the AP <NUM> would comprise a wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi®) router. In various embodiments, the UE 701b, RAN <NUM>, and AP <NUM> may be configured to utilize LWA operation and/or LWIP operation.

The RAN <NUM> can include one or more access nodes (ANs) or RAN nodes 711a and 711b (collectively referred to as "RAN nodes <NUM>") that enable the connections <NUM> and <NUM>. As used herein, the terms "access node," "access point," or the like may describe equipment that provides the radio baseband functions for data and/or voice connectivity between a network and one or more users. These access nodes can be referred to as BS, gNBs, RAN nodes, eNBs, NodeBs, RSUs, TRxPs or TRPs, and so forth, and can comprise ground stations (e.g., terrestrial access points) or satellite stations providing coverage within a geographic area (e.g., a cell). As used herein, the term "NG RAN node" or the like may refer to a RAN node <NUM> that operates in an NR or <NUM> system <NUM> (for example, a gNB), and the term "E-UTRAN node" or the like may refer to a RAN node <NUM> that operates in an LTE or <NUM> system (e.g., an eNB). According to various embodiments, the RAN nodes <NUM> may be implemented as one or more of a dedicated physical device such as a macrocell base station, and/or a low power (LP) base station for providing ferntocells, picocells or other like cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells.

In vehicle-to-everything (V2X) scenarios one or more of the RAN nodes <NUM> may be or act as a road-side unit (RSU). An RSU may refer to any transportation infrastructure entity used for V2X communications. An RSU may be implemented in or by a suitable RAN node or a stationary (or relatively stationary) UE, where an RSU implemented in or by a UE may be referred to as a "UE-type RSU," an RSU implemented in or by an eNB may be referred to as an "eNB-type RSU," an RSU implemented in or by a gNB may be referred to as a "gNB-type RSU," and the like. In one example, an RSU is a computing device coupled with radio frequency circuitry located on a roadside that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs <NUM> (vUES). The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry to store intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, as well as applications/software to sense and control ongoing vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The RSU may operate on the <NUM> Direct Short Range Communications (DSRC) band to provide very low latency communications required for high speed events, such as crash avoidance, traffic warnings, and the like. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may operate on the cellular V2X band to provide the aforementioned low latency communications, as well as other cellular communications services. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may operate as a Wi-Fi hotspot (<NUM> band) and/or provide connectivity to one or more cellular networks to provide uplink and downlink communications. The computing device(s) and some or all of the radiofrequency circuitry of the RSU may be packaged in a weatherproof enclosure suitable for outdoor installation, and may include a network interface controller to provide a wired connection (e.g., Ethernet) to a traffic signal controller and/or a backhaul network.

Any of the RAN nodes <NUM> can terminate the air interface protocol and can be the first point of contact for the UEs <NUM>. In some embodiments, any of the RAN nodes <NUM> can fulfill various logical functions for the RAN <NUM> including, but not limited to, radio network controller (RNC) functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobility management.

In embodiments, the UEs <NUM> can be configured to communicate using OFDM communication signals with each other or with any of the RAN nodes <NUM> over a multicarrier communication channel in accordance with various communication techniques, such as, but not limited to, an OFDMA communication technique (e.g., for downlink communications) or a SC-FDMA communication technique (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communications), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, a downlink resource grid can be used for downlink transmissions from any of the RAN nodes <NUM> to the UEs <NUM>, while uplink transmissions can utilize similar techniques. Such a time-frequency plane representation is a common practice for orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) systems, which makes it intuitive for radio resource allocation.

According to various embodiments, the UEs <NUM> and the RAN nodes <NUM> communicate data (for example, transmit and receive) data over a licensed medium (also referred to as the "licensed spectrum" and/or the "licensed band") and an unlicensed shared medium (also referred to as the "unlicensed spectrum" and/or the "unlicensed band").

To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, for example, in NR-U systems, the UEs <NUM> and the RAN nodes <NUM> may operate using LAA, eLAA, and/or feLAA mechanisms. In these implementations, the UEs <NUM> and the RAN nodes <NUM> may perform one or more known medium-sensing operations and/or carrier-sensing operations in order to determine whether one or more channel in the unlicensed spectrum is unavailable or otherwise occupied prior to transmitting in the unlicensed spectrum. The medium/carrier sensing operations may be performed according to a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol.

As discussed above, LBT is a mechanism whereby equipment (for example, UEs <NUM> RAN nodes <NUM>, etc.) senses a medium (for example, a channel or carrier frequency) and transmits when the medium is sensed to be idle (or when a specific channel in the medium is sensed to be unoccupied). The medium sensing operation may include clear channel assessment (CCA), which utilizes at least energy detection (ED) to determine the presence or absence of other signals on a channel in order to determine if a channel is occupied or clear. This LBT mechanism allows cellular/LAA networks to coexist with incumbent systems in the unlicensed spectrum and with other LAA networks. ED may include sensing RF energy across an intended transmission band for a period of time and comparing the sensed RF energy to a predefined or configured threshold.

The RAN nodes <NUM> may be configured to communicate with one another via interface <NUM>. The interface <NUM> may be an Xn interface <NUM>. The Xn interface is defined between two or more RAN nodes <NUM> (e.g., two or more gNBs and the like) that connect to 5GC <NUM>, between a RAN node <NUM> (e.g., a gNB) connecting to 5GC <NUM> and an eNB, and/or between two eNBs connecting to SGC <NUM>. In some implementations, the Xn interface may include an Xn user plane (Xn-U) interface and an Xn control plane (Xn-C) interface. The Xn-U may provide non-guaranteed delivery of user plane PDUs and support/provide data forwarding and flow control functionality. The Xn-C may provide management and error handling functionality, functionality to manage the Xn-C interface; mobility support for UE <NUM> in a connected mode (e.g.. CM-CONNECTED) including functionality to manage the UE mobility for connected mode between one or more RAN nodes <NUM>. The mobility support may include context transfer from an old (source) serving RAN node <NUM> to new (target) serving RAN node <NUM>: and control of user plane tunnels between old (source) serving RAN node <NUM> to new (target) serving RAN node <NUM>. A protocol stack of the Xn-U may include a transport network layer built on Internet Protocol (IP) transport layer, and a GTP-U layer on top of a UDP and/or IP layer(s) to carry user plane PDUs. The Xn-C protocol stack may include an application layer signaling protocol (referred to as Xn Application Protocol (Xn-AP)) and a transport network layer that is built on SCTP. The SCTP may be on top of an IP layer, and may provide the guaranteed delivery of application layer messages. In the transport IP layer, point-to-point transmission is used to deliver the signaling PDUs. In other implementations, the Xn-U protocol stack and/or the Xn-C protocol stack may be same or similar to the user plane and/or control plane protocol stack(s) shown and described herein.

The RAN <NUM> is shown to be communicatively coupled to a core network-in this embodiment, core network (CN) <NUM>. The CN <NUM> may comprise a plurality of network elements <NUM>, which are configured to offer various data and telecommunications services to customers/subscribers (e.g., users of UEs <NUM>) who are connected to the CN <NUM> via the RAN <NUM>. The components of the CN <NUM> may be implemented in one physical node or separate physical nodes including components to read and execute instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium). In some embodiments, network function virtualization (NFV) may be utilized to virtualize any or all of the above-described network node functions via executable instructions stored in one or more computer-readable storage mediums (described in further detail below). A logical instantiation of the CN <NUM> may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instantiation of a portion of the CN <NUM> may be referred to as a network sub-slice. NFV architectures and infrastructures may be used to virtualize one or more network functions, alternatively performed by proprietary hardware, onto physical resources comprising a combination of industry-standard server hardware, storage hardware, or switches. In other words, NFV systems can be used to execute virtual or reconfigurable implementations of one or more EPC components/functions.

Generally, the application server <NUM> may be an element offering applications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g., UMTS PS domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). The application server <NUM> can also be configured to support one or more communication services (e.g., VoIP sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social networking services, etc.) for the UBs <NUM> via the CN <NUM>.

In embodiments, the CN <NUM> may be a 5GC (referred to as "5GC <NUM>" or the like), and the RAN <NUM> may be connected with the CN <NUM> via an NO interface <NUM>. In embodiments, the NG interface <NUM> may be split into two parts, an NO user plane (NG-U) interface <NUM>, which carries traffic data between the RAN nodes <NUM> and a UPF, and the S1 control plane (NG-C) interface <NUM>, which is a signaling interface between the RAN nodes <NUM> and AMFs.

<FIG> illustrates an example of a platform <NUM> (or "device <NUM>") in accordance with various embodiments. In embodiments, the computer platform <NUM> may be suitable for use as UEs <NUM> and/or any other element/device discussed herein. The platform <NUM> may include any combinations of the components shown in the example. The components of platform <NUM> may be implemented as integrated circuits (ICs), portions thereof, discrete electronic devices, or other modules, logic, hardware, software, firmware, or a combination thereof adapted in the computer platform <NUM>, or as components otherwise incorporated within a chassis of a larger system. The block diagram of <FIG> is intended to show a high level view of components of the computer platform <NUM>. However, some of the components shown may be omitted, additional components may be present, and different arrangement of the components shown may occur in other implementations.

Application circuitry <NUM> includes circuitry such as, but not limited to one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, and one or more of LDOs, interrupt controller, serial interfaces, universal programmable serial interface module, RTC, timer-counters including interval and watchdog timers, general purpose I/O, memory card controllers such as SD MMC or similar, USB interfaces, MIPI® interfaces, and JTAG test access ports. The processors (or cores) of the application circuitry <NUM> may be coupled with or may include memory/storage elements and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory/storage to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the system Processors of the application circuitry XS105/XS205 and processors of the baseband circuitry <NUM> may be used to execute elements of one or more instances of a protocol stack. For example, processors of the baseband circuitry <NUM>, alone or in combination, may be used execute Layer <NUM>, Layer <NUM>. or Layer <NUM> functionality, while processors of the application circuitry <NUM> may utilize data (e.g., packet data) received from these layers and further execute Layer <NUM> functionality (e.g., TCP and UDP layers). As referred to herein, Layer <NUM> may comprise a RRC layer, described in further detail below. As referred to herein. Layer <NUM> may comprise a MAC layer, an RLC layer, and a PDCP layer, described in further detail below. As referred to herein. Layer <NUM> may comprise a PHY layer of a UE/RAN node, described in further detail below.

In some implementations, the memory/storage elements may be on-chip memory circuitry, which may include any suitable volatile and/or non-volatile memory, such as dynamic random access memory DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM, Flash memory, solid-state memory, and/or any other type of memory device technology, such as those discussed herein.

The processor(s) of application circuitry <NUM> may include, for example, one or more processor cores, one or more application processors, one or more graphic processing units (GPUs), one or more reduced instruction set computer (RISC) processors, one or more Arm processors, one or more complex instruction set computer (CISC) processors, one or more DSPs, one or more field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, a multithreaded processor, an ultra-low voltage processor, an embedded processor, some other known processing element, or any suitable combination thereof. In some embodiments, the application circuitry <NUM> may comprise, or may be, a special-purpose processor/controller to operate according to the various embodiments herein.

As examples, the processor(s) of application circuitry <NUM> may include an Intel® Architecture Core™ based processor, such as a Quark™, an Atom™, an i3, an i5, an i7, or an MCU-class processor, or another such processor available from Intel® Corporation, Santa Clara, CA. The processors of the application circuitry <NUM> may also be one or more of Advanced Micro Devices (AMI) Ryzen® processor(s) or Accelerated Processing Units (APUs); A5-A9 processor(s) from Apple® Inc. , Snapdragon™ processor(s) from Qualcomm® Technologies, Inc. , Texas Instruments, Inc. ® Open Multimedia Applications Platform (OMAP)™ processor(s); a MIPS-based design from MIPS Technologies, Inc. such as MIPS Warrior M-class, Warrior <NUM>-class, and Warrior P-class processors; an Arm-based design licensed from ARM Holdings, Ltd. , such as the ARM Cortex-A, Cortex-R, and Cortex-M family of processors; or the like, in some implementations, the application circuitry <NUM> may be a part of a system on a chip (SoC) in which the application circuitry <NUM> and other components are formed into a single integrated circuit, or a single package, such as the Edison™ or Galileo™ SoC boards from Intel® Corporation.

Additionally or alternatively, application circuitry <NUM> may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more FPDs such as FPGAs and the like; PLDs such as complex PLDs (CPLDs), high-capacity PLDs (HCPLDs), and the like: ASICs such as structured ASICs and the like; programmable SoCs (PSoCs); and the like. In such embodiments, the circuitry of application circuitry <NUM> may comprise logic blocks or logic fabric, and other interconnected resources that may be programmed to perform various functions, such as the procedures, methods, functions, etc. of the various embodiments discussed herein. In such embodiments, the circuitry of application circuitry <NUM> may include memory cells such as EPROM, EEPROM, flash memory, static memory (e.g., SRAM, anti-fuses, etc.)) used to store logic blocks, logic fabric, data, etc. in LUTs and the like.

The baseband circuitry <NUM> may be implemented, for example, as a solder-down substrate including one or more integrated circuits, a single packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board or a multi-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits.

The RFEM <NUM>, which may also be referred to as "radio front end circuitry," may comprise a mmWave RFEM and one or more sub-mmWave RFICs. In some implementations, the one or more sub-mmWave RFICs may be physically separated from the mmWave RFEM. The RFICs may include connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays, and the RFEM may be connected to multiple antennas. In alternative implementations, both mmWave and sub-mmWave radio functions may be implemented in the same physical RFEM <NUM>, which incorporates both mmWave antennas and sub-mmWave.

The memory circuitry <NUM> may include any number and type of memory devices used to provide for a given amount of system memory. As examples, the memory circuitry <NUM> may include one or more of volatile memory including RAM, DRAM, and/or SDRAM. and NVM including high-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as Flash memory), PRAM, MRAM, etc. The memory circuitry <NUM> may be developed in accordance with a JEDEC LPDDR-based design, such as LPDDR2, LPDDR3, I. PDDR4, or the like. Memory circuitry <NUM> may be implemented as one or more of solder down packaged integrated circuits, single die package (SDP), DDP or Q17P, socketed memory modules, DIMMs including microDIMMs or MiniDIMMs, and/or soldered onto a motherboard via a ball grid array (BGA). In low power implementations, the memory circuitry <NUM> may be on-die memory or registers associated with the application circuitry <NUM>. To provide for persistent storage of information such as data, applications, operating systems and so forth, memory circuitry <NUM> may include one or more mass storage devices, which may include, inter alia, a SSDD, HDD, a micro HDD, resistance change memories, phase change memories, holographic memories, or chemical memories, among others. For example, the computer platform <NUM> may incorporate the XPOINT memories from Intel® and Micron®.

Removable memory circuitry <NUM> may include devices, circuitry, enclosures/housings, ports or receptacles, etc. used to couple portable data storage devices with the platform <NUM>. These portable data storage devices may be used for mass storage purposes, and may include, for example, flash memory cards (e.g., SO cards, microSD cards, xD picture cards, and the like), and USB flash drives, optical discs, external HDDs, and the like.

The platform <NUM> may also include interface circuitry (not shown) that is used to connect external devices with the platform <NUM>. The external devices connected to the platform <NUM> via the interface circuitry include sensor circuitry <NUM> and electro-mechanical components (EMCs) <NUM>, as well as removable memory devices coupled to removable memory circuitry <NUM>.

The sensor circuitry <NUM> include devices, modules, or subsystems whose purpose is to detect events or changes in its environment and send the information (sensor data) about the detected events to some other a device, module, subsystem, etc. Examples of such sensors include, inter alia, inertia measurement units (IMUs) comprising accelerometers, gyroscopes, and/or magnetometers; microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) or nanoolectromechanical systems (NEMS) comprising <NUM>-axis accelerometers, <NUM>-axis gyroscopes, and/or magnetometers; level sensors; flow sensors; temperature sensors (e.g., thermistors); pressure sensors; barometric pressure sensors; gravimeters; altimeters; image capture devices (e.g., cameras or tensiess apertures), light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors; proximity sensors (e.g., infrared radiation detector and the like), depth sensors, ambient light sensors, ultrasonic transceivers; microphones or other like audio capture devices; etc..

EMCs <NUM> include devices, modules, or subsystems whose purpose is to enable platform <NUM> to change its state, position, and/or orientation, or move or control a mechanism or (sub)system. Additionally, EMCs <NUM> may be configured to generate and send messages/signaling to other components of the platform <NUM> to indicate a current state of the EMCs <NUM>. Examples of the EMCs <NUM> include one or more power switches, relays including electromechanical relays (EMRs) and/or solid state relays (SSRs), actuators (e.g., valve actuators, etc.), an audible sound generator, a visual warning device, motors (e.g., DC motors, stepper motors, etc.), wheels, thrusters, propellers, claws, clamps, hooks, and/or other like electro-mechanical components. In embodiments, platform <NUM> is configured to operate one or mote EMCs <NUM> based on one or more captured events and/or instructions or control signals received from a service provider and/or various clients.

In some implementations, the interface circuitry may connect the platform <NUM> with positioning circuitry <NUM>. The positioning circuitry <NUM> includes circuitry to receive and decode signals transmitted/broadcasted by a positioning network of a GNSS. Examples of navigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) include United States' GPS, Russia's GLONASS, the European Union's Galileo system, China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, a regional navigation system or GNSS augmentation system (e.g., NAVIC), Japan's QZSS, France's IX)RiS, etc.), or the like. The positioning circuitry <NUM> comprises various hardware elements (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, and the like to facilitate OTA communications) to communicate with components of a positioning network, such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some embodiments, the positioning circuitry <NUM> may include a Micro-PNT IC that uses a master timing clock to perform position tracking-estimation without GNSS assistance. The positioning circuitry <NUM> may also be part of, or interact with, the baseband circuitry <NUM> and/or RFEMs <NUM> to communicate with the nodes and components of the positioning network. The positioning circuitry <NUM> may also provide position data and/or time data to the application circuitry <NUM>, which may use the data to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (e.g., radio base stations), for turn-by-turn navigation applications, or the like.

In some implementations, interface circuitry may connect the platform <NUM> with Near-Field Communication (NFC) circuitry <NUM>. NFC circuitry <NUM> is configured to provide contactless, short-range communications based on radio frequency identification (RFID) standards, wherein magnetic field induction is used to enable communication between NFC circuitry <NUM> and NFC-enabled devices external to the platform <NUM> (e.g., an "NFC touchpoint"). NFC circuitry <NUM> comprises an NFC controller coupled with an antenna element and a processor coupled with the NFC controller. The NFC controller may be a chip/IC providing NFC functionalities to the NFC circuitry <NUM> by executing NFC controller firmware and an NFC stack. The NFC stack may be executed by the processor to control the NFC controller, and the NFC controller firmware may be executed by the NFC controller to control the antenna element to emit short-range RF signals. The RF signals may power a passive NFC tag (e.g., a microchip embedded in a sticker or wristband) to transmit stored data to the NFC circuitry <NUM>, or initiate data transfer between the NFC circuitry <NUM> and another active NFC device (e.g., a smartphone or an NFC-enabled POS terminal) that is proximate to the platform <NUM>.

The driver circuitry <NUM> may include software and hardware elements that operate to control particular devices that are embedded in the platform <NUM>, attached to the platform <NUM>, or otherwise communicatively coupled with the platform <NUM>. The driver circuitry <NUM> may include individual drivers allowing other components of the platform <NUM> to interact with or control various input/output (I/O) devices that may be present within, or connected to, the platform <NUM>. For example, driver circuitry <NUM> may include a display driver to control and allow access to a display device, a touchscreen driver to control and allow access to a touchscreen interface of the platform <NUM>, sensor drivers to obtain sensor readings of sensor circuitry <NUM> and control and allow access to sensor circuitry <NUM>, EMC drivers to obtain actuator positions of the EMCs <NUM> and/or control and allow access to the EMCs <NUM>, a camera driver to control and allow access to an embedded image capture device, audio drivers to control and allow access to one or more audio devices.

The PMIC <NUM> (also referred to as "power management circuitry <NUM>") may manage power provided to various components of the platform <NUM>. In particular, with respect to the baseband circuitry <NUM>, the PMIC <NUM> may control power-source selection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-to-DC conversion. The PMIC <NUM> may often be included when the platform <NUM> is capable of being powered by a battery <NUM>, for example, when the device is included in a UE <NUM>.

In some embodiments, the PMIC <NUM> may control, or otherwise be part of, various power saving mechanisms of the platform <NUM>. For example, if the platform <NUM> is in an RRC_Connected state, where it is still connected to the RAN node as it expects to receive traffic shortly, then it may enter a state known as DRX after a period of inactivity. During this state, the platform <NUM> may power down for brief intervals of time and thus save power. If diere is no data traffic activity for an extended period of time, then the platform <NUM> may transition off to an RRC_Idle state, where it disconnects from the network and does not perform operations such as channel quality feedback, handover, etc. The platform <NUM> goes into a very low power state and it performs paging where again it periodically wakes up to listen to the network and then powers down again. The platform <NUM> may not receive data in this state, in order to receive data, it must transition back to RRC_Connected state.

A battery <NUM> may power the platform <NUM>, although in some examples the platform <NUM> may be mounted deployed in a fixed location, and may have a power supply coupled to an electrical grid. The battery <NUM> may be a lithium ion battery, a metal-air battery, such as a zinc-air battery, an aluminum-air battery, a lithium-air battery, and the like. In some implementations, such as in V2X applications, the battery <NUM> may be a typical lead-acid automotive battery,.

In some implementations, the battery <NUM> may be a "smart battery," which includes or is coupled with a BMS or battery monitoring integrated circuitry. The BMS may be included in the platform <NUM> to track the state of charge (SoCh) of the battery <NUM>. The BMS may be used to monitor other parameters of the battery <NUM> to provide failure predictions, such as the state of health (SoH) and the state of function (SoF) of the battery <NUM>. The BMS may communicate the information of the battery <NUM> to the application circuitry <NUM> or other components of the platform <NUM>. The BMS may also include an analog-to-digital (ADC) converter that allows the application circuitry <NUM> to directly monitor the voltage of the battery <NUM> or the current flow from the battery <NUM>. The battery parameters may be used to determine actions that the platform <NUM> may perform, such as transmission frequency, network operation, sensing frequency, and the like.

A power block, or other power supply coupled to an electrical grid may be coupled with the BMS to charge the battery <NUM>. In some examples, the power block may be replaced with a wireless power receiver to obtain the power wirelessly, for example, through a loop antenna in the computer platform <NUM>. In these examples, a wireless battery charging circuit may be included in the BMS. The specific charging circuits chosen may depend on the size of the battery <NUM>, and thus, the current required. The charging may be performed using the Airfuel standard promulgated by the Airfuel Alliance, the Qi wireless charging standard promulgated by the Wireless Power Consortium, or the Rezence charging standard promulgated by the Alliance for Wireless Power, among others.

User interface circuitry <NUM> includes various input/output (I/O) devices present within, or connected to, the platform <NUM>, and includes one or more user interfaces designed to enable user interaction with the platform <NUM> and/or peripheral component interfaces designed to enable peripheral component interaction with the platform <NUM>. The user interface circuitry <NUM> includes input device circuitry and output device circuitry. Input device circuitry includes any physical or virtual means for accepting an input including, inter alia, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), a physical keyboard, keypad, mouse, touchpad, touchscreen, microphones, scanner, headset, and/or the like. The output device circuitry includes any physical or virtual means for showing information or otherwise conveying information, such as sensor readings, actuator position(s), or other like information. Output device circuitry may include any number and/or combinations of audio or visual display, including, inter alia, one or more simple visual outputs/indicators (e.g., binary status indicators (e.g., light emitting diodes (LEDs. )) and multi-character visual outputs, or more complex outputs such as display devices or touchscreens (e.g., Liquid Chrystal Displays (LCD), LED displays, quantum dot displays, projectors, etc.), with the output of characters, graphics, multimedia objects, and the like being generated or produced from the operation of the platform <NUM>. The output device circuitry may also include speakers or other audio emitting devices, printer(s), and/or the like. In some embodiments, the sensor circuitry <NUM> may be used as the input device circuitry (e.g., an image capture device, motion capture device, or the like) and one or more EMCs may be used as the output device circuitry (e.g., an actuator to provide haptic feedback or the like). In another example. NFC circuitry comprising an NFC controller coupled with an antenna element and a processing device may be included to read electronic tags and/or connect with another NFC-enabled device. Peripheral component interfaces may include, but are not limited to, a non-volatile memory port, a USB port, an audio jack, a power supply interface, etc..

Although not shown, the components of platform <NUM> may communicate with one another using a suitable bus or interconnect (IX) technology, which may include any number of technologies, including ISA, EISA, PCI, PCIx, PCIe, a Time-Trigger Protocol (TTP) system, a FlexRay system, or any number of other technologies. The bus/IK may be a proprietary bus/IX, for example, used in a SoC based system. Other bus/IX systems may be included, such as an I2C interface, an SPI interface, point-to-point interfaces, and a power bus, among others.

<FIG> illustrates example components of baseband circuitry <NUM> and radio front end modules (RFEM) <NUM> in accordance with various embodiments. The baseband circuitry <NUM> corresponds to the baseband circuitry <NUM> of <FIG>. The RFEM <NUM> corresponds to the RFEM <NUM> of <FIG>. As shown, the RFEMs <NUM> may include Radio Frequency (RF) circuitry <NUM>, front-end module (FEM) circuitry <NUM>, antenna array <NUM> coupled together at least as shown.

The baseband circuitry <NUM> includes circuitry and/or control logic configured to carry out various radio/network protocol and radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuitry <NUM>. The radio control functions may include, but are not limited to, signal modulation/demodulation, encoding/decoding, radio frequency shifting, etc. In some embodiments, modulation/demodulation circuitry of the baseband circuitry <NUM> may include Fast-Fourier Transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping demapping functionality. In some embodiments, encoding/decoding circuitry of the baseband circuitry <NUM> may include convolution, tail-biting convolution, turbo, Viterbi, or Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) encoder/decoder functionality. Embodiments of modulation/demodulation and encoder/decoder functionality are not limited to these examples and may include other suitable functionality in other embodiments. The baseband circuitry <NUM> is configured to process baseband signals received from a receive signal path of the RF circuitry <NUM> and to generate baseband signals for a transmit signal path of the RF circuitry <NUM>. The baseband circuitry <NUM> is configured to interface with application circuitry <NUM> of <FIG> for generation and processing of the baseband signals and for controlling operations of the RF circuitry <NUM>. The baseband circuitry <NUM> may handle various radio control functions.

The aforementioned circuitry and/or control logic of the baseband circuitry <NUM> may include one or more single or inulti-core processors. For example, the one or more processors may include a <NUM> baseband processor 904A, a <NUM>/LTE baseband processor 904B, a <NUM>/NR baseband processor 904C, or some other baseband processor(s) 904D for other existing generations. generations in development or to be developed in the future (e.g., sixth generation (<NUM>), etc.). In other embodiments, some or all of the functionality of baseband processors 904A-D may be included in modules stored in the memory <NUM> and executed via a CPU 904E. In other embodiments, some or all of the functionality of baseband processors 904A-D may be provided as hardware accelerators (e.g., FPGAs, ASICs, etc.) loaded with the appropriate bit streams or logic blocks stored in respective memory cells. In various embodiments, the memory <NUM> may store program code of a real-time OS (RTOS), which when executed by the CPU 904E (or other baseband processor), is to cause the CPU 904E (or other baseband processor) to manage resources of the baseband circuitry <NUM>, schedule tasks, etc. Examples of the RTOS may include Operating System Embedded (OSE)™ provided by Enea®, Nucleus RTOS™ provided by Mentor Graphics®, Versatile Real-Time Executive (VRTX) provided by Mentor Graphics®, ThreadX™ provided by Express Logic®, FreeRTOS, REX OS provided by Qualcomm®, OKL4 provided by Open Kernel (OK) Labs®, or any other suitable RTOS. such as those discussed herein. In addition, the baseband circuitry <NUM> includes one or more audio DSPs 904F. The audio DSP(s) 904F include elements for compression/decompression and echo cancellation and may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments.

In some embodiments, each of the processors 904A - 904F include respective memory interfaces to send/receive data to/from the memory <NUM>. The baseband circuitry <NUM> may further include one or more interfaces to communicatively couple to other circuitries/devices, such as an interface to send/receive data to/from memory external to the baseband circuitry <NUM>; an application circuitry interface to send/receive data to/from the application circuitry <NUM> of <FIG>); an RF circuitry interface to send/receive data to/from RF circuitry <NUM>; a wireless hardware connectivity interface to send/receive data to/from one or more wireless hardware elements (e.g., Near Field Communication (NFC) components, Bluetooth®/ Bluetooth® Low Energy components, Wi-Fi® components, and/or the like); and a power management interface to send/receive power or control signals to/from the PMIC <NUM>.

In alternate embodiments (which may be combined with the above described embodiments), baseband circuitry <NUM> comprises one or more digital baseband systems, which are coupled with one another via an interconnect subsystem and to a CPU subsystem, an audio subsystem, and an interface subsystem. The digital baseband subsystems may also be coupled to a digital baseband interface and a mixed-signal baseband subsystem via another interconnect subsystem. Each of the interconnect subsystems may include a bus system, point-to-point connections, network-on-chip (NOC) structures, and/or some other suitable bus or interconnect technology, such as those discussed herein. The audio subsystem may include DSP circuitry, buffer memory, program memory, speech processing accelerator circuitry, data converter circuitry such as analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converter circuitry, analog circuitry including one or more of amplifiers and filters, and/or other like components. In an aspect of the present disclosure. baseband circuitry <NUM> may include protocol processing circuitry with one or more instances of control circuitry (not shown) to provide control functions for the digital baseband circuitry and/or radio frequency circuitry (e.g., the radio front end modifies <NUM>).

Although not shown by <FIG>. in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry <NUM> includes individual processing device(s) to operate one or more wireless communication protocols (e.g., a "multi-protocol baseband processor" or "protocol processing circuitry") and individual processing device(s) to implement PHY layer functions. In these embodiments, the PHY layer functions include the aforementioned radio control functions. In these embodiments, the protocol processing circuitry operates or implements various protocol layers/entities of one or more wireless communication protocols. In a first example, the protocol processing circuitry may operate LTE protocol entities and/or <NUM>/NR protocol entities when the baseband circuitry <NUM> and/or RF circuitry <NUM> are part of mmWave communication circuitry or some other suitable cellular communication circuitry. In the first example, the protocol processing circuitry would operate MAC, RLC, PDCP, SDAP, RRC, and NAS functions. In a second example, the protocol processing circuitry may operate one or more IEEE-based protocols when the baseband circuitry <NUM> and/or RF circuitry <NUM> are part of a Wi-Fi communication system. In the second example, the protocol processing circuitry would operate Wi-Fi MAC and logical link control (LLC) functions. The protocol processing circuitry may include one or more memory structures (for example, memory <NUM>) to store program code and data for operating the protocol functions, as well as one or more processing cores to execute the program code and perform various operations using the data. The baseband circuitry <NUM> may also support radio communications for more than one wireless protocol.

The various hardware elements of the baseband circuitry <NUM> discussed herein may be implemented, for example, as a solder-down substrate including one or more integrated circuits (ICs), a single packaged IC soldered to a main circuit board or a multi-chip module containing two or more ICs. In one example, the components of the baseband circuitry <NUM> may be suitably combined in a single chip or chipset, or disposed on a same circuit board. In another example, some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry <NUM> and RF circuitry <NUM> may be implemented together such as, for example, a system on a chip (SoC) or System-in-Package (SiP). In another example, some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry <NUM> may be implemented as a separate SoC that is communicatively coupled with and RF circuitry <NUM> (or multiple instances of RF circuitry <NUM>). In yet another example, some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry <NUM> and the application circuitry may be implemented together as individual SoCs mounted to a same circuit board (for example, a "multi-chip package").

For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry <NUM> may support communication with an NG-RAN, E-UTRAN or other WMAN, a WLAN, a WPAN.

RF circuitry <NUM> may include a receive signal path, which may include circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry <NUM> and provide baseband signals to the baseband circuitry <NUM>. RF circuitry <NUM> may also include a transmit signal path, which may include circuitry to up-convert baseband signals provided by the baseband circuitry <NUM> and provide RF output signals to the FEM circuitry <NUM> for transmission.

In some embodiments, the receive signal path of the RF circuitry <NUM> may include mixer circuitry 906a, amplifier circuitry 906b and filter circuitry 906c. In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of the RF circuitry <NUM> may include filter circuitry 906c and mixer circuitry 906a. RF circuitry <NUM> may also include synthesizer circuitry 906d for synthesizing a frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 906a of the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 906a of the receive signal path may be configured to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry <NUM> based on the synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuitry 906d. The amplifier circuitry 906b may be configured to amplify the down-converted signals and the filter circuitry 906c may be a low-pass filter (LPF) or bandpass filter (BPF) configured to remove unwanted signals from the down-converted signals to generate output baseband signals. Output baseband signals may be provided to the baseband circuitry <NUM> for further processing. In some embodiments, the output baseband signals may be zero-frequency baseband signals, although this is not a requirement. In some embodiments, mixer circuitry 906a of the receive signal path may comprise passive mixers, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 906a of the transmit signal path may be configured to up-convert input baseband signals based on the synthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuitry 906d to generate RF output signals for the FEM circuitry <NUM>. The baseband signals may be provided by the baseband circuitry <NUM> and may be filtered by filter circuitry 906c.

In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 906a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 906a of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for quadrature downconversion and upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 906a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 906a of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for image rejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 906a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 906a of the transmit signal path may be arranged for direct downconversion and direct upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 906a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 906a of the transmit signal path may be configured for superheterodyne operation.

In some dual-mode embodiments, a separate radio IC circuitry may be provided for processing signals for each spectrum, althongh the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 906d may be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N/N+<NUM> synthesizer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect as other types of frequency synthesizers may be suitable. For example, synthesizer circuitry 906d may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer comprising a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider.

The synthesizer circuitry 906d may be configured to synthesize an output frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 906a of the RF circuitry <NUM> based on a frequency input and a divider control input. In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 906d may be a fractional N/N+<NUM> synthesizer.

Divider control input may be provided by either the baseband circuitry <NUM> or the application circuitry XS10S/XS205 depending on the desired output frequency. In some embodiments, a divider control input (e.g., N) may be determined from a look-up table based on a channel indicated by the application circuitry.

Synthesizer circuitry 906d of the RF circuitry <NUM> may include a divider, a delay-locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer and a phase accumulator. In some embodiments, the divider may be a dual modulus divider (DMD) and the phase accumulator may be a digital phase accumulator (OPA). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured to divide the input signal by either N or N+<NUM> (e.g., based on a carry out) to provide a fractional division ratio. In some example embodiments, the DLL may include a set of cascaded, tunable, delay elements, a phase detector, a charge pump and a D-type flip-flop. In these embodiments, the delay elements may be configured to break a VCO period up into Nd equal packets of phase, where Nd is the number of delay elements in the delay line. In this way, the DLL provides negative feedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle.

In some embodiments, synthesizer circuitry 906d may be configured to generate a carrier frequency as the output frequency, while in other embodiments, the output frequency may be a multiple of the carrier frequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrier frequency) and used in conjunction with quadrature generator and divider circuitry to generate multiple signals at the carrier frequency with multiple different phases with respect to each other. In some embodiments, the output frequency may be a LO frequency (fLO). In some embodiments, the RF circuitry <NUM> may include an IQ/polar converter.

FEM circuitry <NUM> may include a receive signal path, which may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from antenna array <NUM>, amplify the received signals and provide the amplified versions of the received signals to the RF circuitry <NUM> for further processing. FEM circuitry <NUM> may also include a transmit signal path, which may include circuitry configured to amplify signals for transmission provided by the RF circuitry <NUM> for transmission by one or more of antenna elements of antenna array <NUM>. In various embodiments, the amplification through the transmit or receive signal paths may be done solely in the RF circuitry <NUM>, solely in the FEM circuitry <NUM>, or in both the RF circuitry <NUM> and the FEM circuitry <NUM>.

The FEM circuitry <NUM> may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the FEM circuitry <NUM> may include an LNA to amplify received RF signals and provide the amplified received RF signals as an output (e.g., to the RF circuitry <NUM>). The transmit signal path of the FEM circuitry <NUM> may include a power amplifier (PA) to amplify input RF signals (e.g., provided by RF circuitry <NUM>), and one or more filters to generate RF signals for subsequent transmission by one or more antenna elements of the antenna array <NUM>.

The antenna array <NUM> comprises one or more antenna elements, each of which is configured convert electrical signals into radio waves to travel through the air and to convert received radio waves into electrical signals. For example, digital baseband signals provided by the baseband circuitry <NUM> is converted into analog RF signals (e.g., modulated waveform) that will be amplified and transmitted via the antenna elements of the antenna array <NUM> including one or more antenna elements (not shown). The antenna elements may be omnidirectional, direction, or a combination thereof. The antenna elements may be formed in a multitude of arranges as are known and/or discussed herein. The antenna array <NUM> may comprise microstrip antennas or printed antennas that are fabricated on the surface of one or more printed circuit boards. The antenna array <NUM> may be formed in as a patch of metal foil (e.g., a patch antenna) in a variety of shapes, and may be coupled with the RF circuitry <NUM> and/or FEM circuitry <NUM> using metal transmission lines or the like.

<FIG> is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. Specifically. <FIG> shows a diagrammatic representation of hardware resources <NUM> including one or more processors (or processor cores) <NUM>, one or more memory/storage devices <NUM>, and one or more communication resources <NUM>, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus <NUM>. For embodiments where node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor <NUM> may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources <NUM>.

The processors <NUM> may include, for example, a processor <NUM> and a processor <NUM>, The processor(s) <NUM> may be, for example, a CPU, a RiSe processor, a CISC processor, a GPU, a DSP such as a baseband processor, an ASIC, an FPGA, a RFIC, another processor (including those discussed herein), or any suitable combination thereof.

The memory/storage devices <NUM> may include, but are not limited to, any type of volatile or nonvolatile memory such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM, Flash memory, solid-state storage, etc..

For example, the communication resources <NUM> may include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via USB), cellular communication components, NFC components, Bluetooth® (or Bluetooth® Low Energy) components, Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components.

Instructions <NUM> may comprise software, a program, an application, an applet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of the processors <NUM> to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. The instructions <NUM> may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processors <NUM> (e.g., within the processor's cache memory), the memory/storage devices <NUM>, or any suitable combination thereof. Furthermore, any portion of the instructions <NUM> may be transferred to the hardware resources <NUM> from any combination of the peripheral devices <NUM> or the databases <NUM>. Accordingly, the memory of processors <NUM>, the memory/storage devices <NUM>, the peripheral devices <NUM>, and the databases <NUM> are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

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

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

Claim 1:
A User Equipment, UE, comprising:
memory to store one or more Public Land Mobile Network, PLMN, IDentities ,IDs, associated with a source cell;
processing circuitry coupled with the memory, the processing circuitry adapted to
select a candidate cell based on a measured quality metric (<NUM>);
decode a Master Information Block, MIB, to determine System Information Broadcast <NUM>, SIB1, information (<NUM>);
determine that a SIB1 message is co-located with a Discovery Reference Signal, DRS, of the candidate cell (<NUM>);
decode the SIB1 message, based on the SIB1 information and the determination that the SIB1 message is co-located with the DRS, to determine at least one PLMN ID associated with the candidate cell (<NUM>);
compare the at least one PLMN ID with the one or more PLMN IDs (<NUM>); and determine whether to perform cell reselection from the source cell to the candidate cell based on the comparison of the at least one PLMN ID with the one or more PLMN IDs (<NUM>).