Patent Description:
Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in the present disclosure and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.

Fifth Generation (<NUM>) New Radio (NR) involved communications and/or networks have been developed various techniques based on bandwidth part (BWP) and BWP switching. Existing intra-frequency measurement may always be configured with a measurement gap (MG) due to relatively faster BWP switching than MG reconfiguration, when an active BWP is switched to interrupt the intra-frequency measurement in a radio resource management (RRM). When more than one synchronization signal (SS) associated with the same cell have been transmitted to a user equipment (UE), the UE may be required to measure all of the SSs even they are associated with the same cell. The UE may not be able to identify that those SSs are associated with the same cell until detecting and measuring them. This may affect radio resource management (RRM) efficiency with respect to either the UE or the network. New solutions are needed in this regard.

<NPL>, identifies and discusses issues related to RRM measurement that need to be addressed by RAN2 because of the new aspects introduced by BWP operation. This document notes that RRM measurement on the single SSB is considered as the baseline for inter-cell mobility and further notes that if multiple SSBs are transmitted in frequency domain in the serving cell of the UE, the UE should be indicated with one specific SSB in the UE's serving cell which is used for measurement for mobility to make the UE measurement behavior clear. One straightway is that only one SSB configuration is included in the MO configuration, which is considered as the specific SSB for inter-cell mobility.

<NPL>, also studies the RAN2 impact on RAN1 BWP agreements in related to configuration, activation/ deactivation and RRM aspects. Also this document notes that the UE should be indicated with one specific SSB in the UE's serving cell which is used for measurement for mobility and confirms that that multiple SS block may be transmitted in different BWP but the network will only configure one SS block for RRM purpose.

Advantageous embodiments are subject to the dependent claims.

Various operations may be described as multiple discrete actions or operations in turn, in a manner that is most helpful in understanding the claimed subject matter. However, the order of description should not be construed as to imply that these operations are necessarily order dependent. In particular, these operations may not be performed in the order of presentation. Operations described may be performed in a different order than the described embodiment. Various additional operations may be performed and/or described operations may be omitted in additional embodiments.

For the purposes of the present disclosure, the phrases "A or B" and "A and/or B" mean (A), (B), or (A and B). For the purposes of the present disclosure, the phrases "A, B, or C" and "A, B, and/or C" mean (A), (B), (C), (A and B), (A and C), (B and C), or (A, B, and C).

As used herein, the term "circuitry" may refer to, be part of, or include any combination of integrated circuits (for example, a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), etc.), discrete circuits, combinational logic circuits, system on a chip (SOC), system in a package (SiP), that provides the described functionality. In some embodiments, the circuitry may execute one or more software or firmware modules to provide the described functions.

A measurement gap configuration configures a gap period repeatedly in time so that a UE may use the configured period to conduct a non-data duty, for example, cell measurements. The term "measurement" herein refers to one or more measurements involving non-data duty between the UE and network. The measurement may be performed with respect to one or more synchronization signals (SSs) that include one or more SS blocks (SSBs). A UE may use an MG to identify and measure intra-frequency cells, intra-frequency cells, and/or inter-RAT E-UTRAN cells. During a configured MG period, the UE may not be expected to transmit or receive data with serving cell, or like activities.

An MG configuration may correspond to one or more MG patterns on which the UE's operations may be based. The operations may include identifying and measuring cells in the network, and other non-data operations. A UE may be configured with an MG while operating at any frequency in either FR1 or FR2. Such a measurement gap configuration may be referred to as a UE gap or a per UE gap.

Note that terms "measurement gap (MG)" and "gap" are used interchangeably throughout this disclosure, and terms "UE gap," "per-UE gap," "UE MG," "per-UE MG" are used interchangeably throughout this disclosure.

In some situations, a UE may be configured with more than one measurement gap according to different frequencies at which the UE may operate. For example, a UE may comply with respective measurement gaps while operating at FR1 and FR2 to accommodate different operations at different frequency ranges. However, the UE may activate or use one MG and/or MG pattern at any given time. This may affect UE and/or network data processing efficiency. A detailed example is to be illustrated with respect to <FIG>. Thus, it may improve UE and/or network efficiency if the UE can indicate its capability of supporting multiple MGs and the network can configure one or more MGs accordingly.

Note that terms "FR1 gap," "per-FR1 gap," "FR1 MG," "per-FR1 MG" are used interchangeably throughout this disclosure, and terms "FR2 gap," "per-FR2 gap," "FR2 MG," "per-FR2 MG" are used interchangeably throughout this disclosure. FR1 gap and FR2 gap may be collectively referred to as FR gap.

In an intra-frequency measurement under existing NR RRM, An MG may be configured to a UE regardless that the SSB is in an active BWP or a non-active BWP. This may negatively affect data throughput performance for the UE and network. Further, when a plurality of SSBs of different BWPs are transmitted to the UE, the UE may have to measure all of the SSBs with one or more MGs. Conventionally, the UE and network may have to use the configured MG(s) once they are configured, which means, for example, data activities may halt to yield to the SSB measurements. In addition, to measure multiple SSBs from the same cell may cause additional throughput degradation but gain little value, if the multiple SSBs carry the same or substantially similar information with respect to the purposes of an SSB measurement.

Embodiments described herein may include, for example, apparatuses, methods, and storage media for configuration and determination of SSB measurements regarding multiple SSBs from a single cell in an intra-frequency measurement. The implementation may improve UE and/or network efficiency and allow the UE to perform only one or not all SSB measurements with respect to the cell to reduce or avoid unnecessary throughput degradation.

<FIG> schematically illustrates an example wireless network <NUM> (hereinafter "network <NUM>") in accordance with various embodiments herein. The network <NUM> may include a UE <NUM> in wireless communication with an AN <NUM>. In some embodiments, the network <NUM> may be a NR SA network. The UE <NUM> may be configured to connect, for example, to be communicatively coupled, with the AN <NUM>. In this example, the connection <NUM> is illustrated as an air interface to enable communicative coupling, and can be consistent with cellular communications protocols such as a <NUM> NR protocol operating at mmWave and sub-<NUM>, a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) protocol, a code-division multiple access (CDMA) network protocol, a Push-to-Talk (PTT) protocol, and the like.

The UE <NUM> is illustrated as a smartphone (for example, a handheld touchscreen mobile computing device connectable to one or more cellular networks), but may also comprise any mobile or non-mobile computing devices, such as a Personal Data Assistant (PDA), pager, laptop computer, desktop computer, wireless handset, customer premises equipment (CPE), fixed wireless access (FWA) device, vehicle mounted UE or any computing device including a wireless communications interface. In some embodiments, the UE <NUM> can comprise an Internet of Things (IoT) UE, which can comprise a network access layer designed for low-power IoT applications utilizing short-lived UE connections. An IoT UE can utilize technologies such as narrowband IoT (NB-IoT), machine-to-machine (M2M) or machine-type communications (MTC) for exchanging data with an MTC server or device via a public land mobile network (PLMN), Proximity-Based Service (ProSe) or device-to-device (D2D) communication, sensor networks, or IoT networks. The M2M or MTC exchange of data may be a machine-initiated exchange of data. An NB-IoT/MTC network describes interconnecting NB-IoT/MTC UEs, which may include uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within the Internet infrastructure), with short-lived connections. The NB-IoT/MTC UEs may execute background applications (for example, keep-alive message, status updates, location related services, etc.).

The AN <NUM> can enable or terminate the connection <NUM>. The AN <NUM> can be referred to as a base station (BS), NodeB, evolved-NodeB (eNB), Next-Generation NodeB (gNB or ng-gNB), NG-RAN node, cell, serving cell, neighbor cell, and so forth, and can comprise ground stations (for example, terrestrial access points) or satellite stations providing coverage within a geographic area.

The AN <NUM> can be the first point of contact for the UE <NUM>. In some embodiments, the AN <NUM> can fulfill various logical functions 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 some embodiments, a downlink resource grid can be used for downlink transmissions from the AN <NUM> to the UE <NUM>, while uplink transmissions can utilize similar techniques. Such a time-frequency plane representation is a common practice for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems, which makes it intuitive for radio resource allocation.

The physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) may carry user data and higher-layer signaling to the UE <NUM>. It may also inform the UE <NUM> about the transport format, resource allocation, and hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) information related to the uplink shared channel. Typically, downlink scheduling (assigning control and shared channel resource blocks to the UE <NUM> within a cell) may be performed at the AN <NUM> based on channel quality information fed back from any of the UE <NUM>. The downlink resource assignment information may be sent on the PDCCH used for (for example, assigned to) the UE <NUM>.

Some embodiments may use concepts for resource allocation for control channel information that are an extension of the above-described concepts. For example, some embodiments may utilize an enhanced physical downlink control channel (ePDCCH) that uses PDSCH resources for control information transmission. The ePDCCH may be transmitted using one or more enhanced control channel elements (ECCEs). Similar to the above, each ECCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements known as enhanced resource element groups (EREGs). An ECCE may have other numbers of EREGs in some situations.

As shown in <FIG>, the UE <NUM> may include millimeter wave communication circuitry grouped according to functions. The circuitry shown here is for illustrative purposes and the UE <NUM> may include other circuitry shown in <FIG>. The UE <NUM> may include protocol processing circuitry <NUM>, which may implement one or more of layer operations related to medium access control (MAC), radio link control (RLC), packet data convergence protocol (PDCP), radio resource control (RRC) and non-access stratum (NAS). The protocol processing circuitry <NUM> may include one or more processing cores (not shown) to execute instructions and one or more memory structures (not shown) to store program and data information.

The UE <NUM> may further include digital baseband circuitry <NUM>, which may implement physical layer (PHY) functions including one or more of HARQ functions, scrambling and/or descrambling, coding and/or decoding, layer mapping and/or de-mapping, modulation symbol mapping, received symbol and/or bit metric determination, multi-antenna port pre-coding and/or decoding, which may include one or more of space-time, space-frequency or spatial coding, reference signal generation and/or detection, preamble sequence generation and/or decoding, synchronization sequence generation and/or detection, control channel signal blind decoding, and other related functions.

The UE <NUM> may further include transmit circuitry <NUM>, receive circuitry <NUM>, radio frequency (RF) circuitry <NUM>, and RF front end (RFFE) <NUM>, which may include or connect to one or more antenna panels <NUM>.

In some embodiments, RF circuitry <NUM> may include multiple parallel RF chains or branches for one or more of transmit or receive functions; each chain or branch may be coupled with one antenna panel <NUM>.

In some embodiments, the protocol processing circuitry <NUM> may include one or more instances of control circuitry (not shown) to provide control functions for the digital baseband circuitry <NUM> (or simply, "baseband circuitry <NUM>"), transmit circuitry <NUM>, receive circuitry <NUM>, radio frequency circuitry <NUM>, RFFE <NUM>, and one or more antenna panels <NUM>.

A UE reception may be established by and via the one or more antenna panels <NUM>, RFFE <NUM>, RF circuitry <NUM>, receive circuitry <NUM>, digital baseband circuitry <NUM>, and protocol processing circuitry <NUM>. The one or more antenna panels <NUM> may receive a transmission from the AN <NUM> by receive-beamforming signals received by a plurality of antennas/antenna elements of the one or more antenna panels <NUM>. Further details regarding the UE <NUM> architecture are illustrated in <FIG>, <FIG>, and <FIG>. The transmission from the AN <NUM> may be transmit-beamformed by antennas of the AN <NUM>. In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry <NUM> may contain both the transmit circuitry <NUM> and the receive circuitry <NUM>. In other embodiments, the baseband circuitry <NUM> may be implemented in separate chips or modules, for example, one chip including the transmit circuitry <NUM> and another chip including the receive circuitry <NUM>.

Similar to the UE <NUM>, the AN <NUM> may include mmWave/sub-mmWave communication circuitry grouped according to functions. The AN <NUM> may include protocol processing circuitry <NUM>, digital baseband circuitry <NUM> (or simply, "baseband circuitry <NUM>"), transmit circuitry <NUM>, receive circuitry <NUM>, RF circuitry <NUM>, RFFE <NUM>, and one or more antenna panels <NUM>.

A cell transmission may be established by and via the protocol processing circuitry <NUM>, digital baseband circuitry <NUM>, transmit circuitry <NUM>, RF circuitry <NUM>, RFFE <NUM>, and one or more antenna panels <NUM>. The one or more antenna panels <NUM> may transmit a signal by forming a transmit beam. <FIG> further illustrates details regarding the RFFE <NUM> and antenna panel <NUM>.

<FIG> illustrates example components of a device <NUM> in accordance with some embodiments. In contrast to <FIG>, <FIG> illustrates example components of the UE <NUM> or the AN <NUM> from a receiving and/or transmitting function point of view, and it may not include all of the components described in <FIG>. In some embodiments, the device <NUM> may include application circuitry <NUM>, baseband circuitry <NUM>, RF circuitry <NUM>, RFFE circuitry <NUM>, and a plurality of antennas <NUM> together at least as shown. The baseband circuitry <NUM> may be similar to and substantially interchangeable with the baseband circuitry <NUM> in some embodiments. The plurality of antennas <NUM> may constitute one or more antenna panels for beamforming. The components of the illustrated device <NUM> may be included in a UE or an AN. In some embodiments, the device <NUM> may include fewer elements (for example, a cell may not utilize the application circuitry <NUM>, and instead include a processor/controller to process IP data received from an EPC). In some embodiments, the device <NUM> may include additional elements such as, for example, a memory/storage, display, camera, sensor, or input/output (I/O) interface. In other embodiments, the components described below may be included in more than one device (for example, said circuitry may be separately included in more than one device for Cloud-RAN (C-RAN) implementations).

The processor(s) may include any combination of general-purpose processors and dedicated processors (for example, graphics processors, application processors, etc.).

The baseband circuitry <NUM> may be similar to and substantially interchangeable with the baseband circuitry <NUM> and the baseband circuitry <NUM> in some embodiments. The baseband circuitry <NUM> may include one or more baseband processors or control logic 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>. Baseband circuitry <NUM> may interface with the application circuitry <NUM> for generation and processing of the baseband signals and for controlling operations of the RF circuitry <NUM>. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry <NUM> may include a third generation (<NUM>) baseband processor 204A, a fourth generation (<NUM>) baseband processor 204B, a fifth generation (<NUM>) baseband processor 204C, or other baseband processor(s) 204D for other existing generations, generations in development or to be developed in the future (for example, second generation (<NUM>), sixth generation (<NUM>), etc.). The baseband circuitry <NUM> (for example, one or more of baseband processors 204A-D) may handle various radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuitry <NUM>. In other embodiments, some or all of the functionality of baseband processors 204A-D may be included in modules stored in the memory <NUM> and executed via a central processing unit (CPU) 204E. 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.

In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry <NUM> may include one or more audio digital signal processor(s) (DSP) 204F. The audio DSP(s) 204F may include elements for compression/decompression and echo cancellation and may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments. Components of the baseband circuitry may be suitably combined in a single chip, in a single chipset, or disposed on a same circuit board in some embodiments. In some embodiments, some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry <NUM> and the application circuitry <NUM> may be implemented together such as, for example, on a SOC.

For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry <NUM> may support communication with an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN) or other wireless metropolitan area networks (WMAN), a wireless local area network (WLAN), a wireless personal area network (WPAN).

In various embodiments, the RF circuitry <NUM> may include one or more switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate the communication with the wireless network. RF circuitry <NUM> may include receiver circuitry 206A, which may include circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from the RFFE circuitry <NUM> and provide baseband signals to the baseband circuitry <NUM>. RF circuitry <NUM> may also include transmitter circuitry 206B, which may include circuitry to up-convert baseband signals provided by the baseband circuitry <NUM> and provide RF output signals to the RFFE circuitry <NUM> for transmission.

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

RFFE circuitry <NUM> may include a receive signal path, which may include circuitry configured to operate on RF beams received from one or more antennas <NUM>. The RF beams may be transmit beams formed and transmitted by the AN <NUM> while operating in mmWave or sub-mmWave frequency rang. The RFFE circuitry <NUM> coupled with the one or more antennas <NUM> may receive the transmit beams and proceed them to the RF circuitry <NUM> for further processing. RFFE 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 the antennas <NUM>, with or without beamforming. In various embodiments, the amplification through transmit or receive signal paths may be done solely in the RF circuitry <NUM>, solely in the RFFE circuitry <NUM>, or in both the RF circuitry <NUM> and the RFFE circuitry <NUM>.

In some embodiments, the RFFE circuitry <NUM> may include a TX/RX switch to switch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The RFFE circuitry <NUM> may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the RFFE circuitry <NUM> may include a low noise amplifier (LNA) to amplify received RF beams and provide the amplified received RF signals as an output (for example, to the RF circuitry <NUM>). The transmit signal path of the RFFE circuitry <NUM> may include a power amplifier (PA) to amplify input RF signals (for example, provided by RF circuitry <NUM>), and one or more filters to generate RF signals for beamforming and subsequent transmission (for example, by one or more of the one or more antennas <NUM>).

For example, processors of the baseband circuitry <NUM>, alone or in combination, may be used to execute Layer <NUM>, Layer <NUM>, or Layer <NUM> functionality, while processors of the application circuitry <NUM> may utilize data (for example, packet data) received from these layers and further execute Layer <NUM> functionality (for example, transmission communication protocol (TCP) and user datagram protocol (UDP) layers). As referred to herein, Layer <NUM> may comprise a physical (PHY) layer of a UE/AN, described in further detail below.

<FIG> illustrates an embodiment of a radio frequency front end <NUM> incorporating an mmWave RFFE <NUM> and one or more sub-<NUM> radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) <NUM>. The mmWave RFFE <NUM> may be similar to and substantially interchangeable with the RFFE <NUM>, RFFE <NUM>, and/or the RFFE circuitry <NUM> in some embodiments. The mmWave RFFE <NUM> may be used for the UE <NUM> while operating in FR2 or mmWave; the RFICs <NUM> may be used for the UE <NUM> while operating in FR1, sub-<NUM>, or LTE bands. In this embodiment, the one or more RFICs <NUM> may be physically separated from the mmWave RFFE <NUM>. RFICs <NUM> may include connection to one or more antennas <NUM>. The RFFE <NUM> may be coupled with multiple antennas <NUM>, which may constitute one or more antenna panels.

<FIG> illustrates an alternate embodiment of an RFFE <NUM>. In this aspect both millimeter wave and sub-<NUM> radio functions may be implemented in the same physical RFFE <NUM>. The RFFE <NUM> may incorporate both millimeter wave antennas <NUM> and sub-<NUM> antennas <NUM>. The RFFE <NUM> may be similar to and substantially interchangeable with the RFFE <NUM>, RFFE <NUM>, and/or the RFFE circuitry <NUM> in some embodiments.

<FIG> illustrate embodiments of various RFFE architectures for either the UE <NUM> or the AN <NUM>.

In a cellular network, it may be desirable to measure cell quality, such as reference signal received power (RSRP), reference signal received quality (RSRQ), signal to noise and interference ratio (SINR), and/or other like quality measurements, for handover to a neighbor cell and/or adding a new carrier component (CC) in a carrier aggregation (CA). With LTE, a cell-specific reference signal (CRS) may be transmitted continuously so that the UE may measure the cell quality of a neighbor cell. By contrast, NR does not have reference signal CRS, which may reduce resource overhead and interference to other cells. With NR, synchronization signal/physical broadcast channel (PBCH) blocks (SSBs) may be used for cell quality measurements. The SSBs may have a longer transmission periodicity than CRS. The SSB periodicity may be configured for <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM> milliseconds (ms), and etc. However, the UE may or may not measure cell quality with the same periodicity for multiple SSBs. Note that an SSB may refer to a set of SSBs transmitted repeatedly with a particular carrier frequency, periodicity, and SCS. An appropriate periodicity may be configured based on various channel conditions and network conditions, which may reduce unnecessary measurements and/or reduce power consumption of the UE. As such, SSB-based RRM measurement timing configuration (SMTC) window may be used to configure the UE with the periodicity and timing of the SSBs with which the UE may use for measurements. For example, the SMTC window configuration may support the periodicities of <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM>, and <NUM> and durations of <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM>, and <NUM>. The SMTC window may also be set with an offset if the SSBs shift. Thus, to measure an SSB or a set of SSBs, an SMTC window may be configured to the UE with SMTC periodicity, SMTC offset, SMTC duration.

In embodiments, if the UE needs to measure SSBs, a measurement map (MG) may be configured to the UE so that the UE may not transmit or receive data, or perform some other operations while measuring the SSBs. In NR, an MG length (MGL) may be configured with several different values rather than one fixed length for LTE. Thus, a more adequate MGL can be configured for a particular measurement object (MO) to reduce unnecessary degradation of throughput. For example, the MGL for NR may be configurable to <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM>, or <NUM>,ms in additional to the original <NUM>. Note that MO refers to an object on which the UE may perform measurements. In intra-frequency and inter-frequency measurements, an MO may indicate a frequency/time location and subcarrier spacing (SCS) of a target reference signal to be measured.

In recent NR RRM and other events, BWP has been used to distinguish and/or configure certain frequency range and SCS so that the UE and its serving cell may use it for communications between them. With bandwidth adaptation (BA), the receive and transmit bandwidth of the UE need not be as large as the bandwidth (BW) of the cell and can be adjusted. A subset of the total cell bandwidth of a cell is referred to as a Bandwidth Part (BWP) and BA is achieved by configuring the UE with one or more BWP(s) and indicating which of the configured BWPs is currently an active BWP. A BWP may be characterized with a BW and an SCS with which a UE and network establish and perform communications.

When the UE is configured for operation in BWPs of a serving cell, the UE may be configured by higher layers for the serving cell with a set of BWPs for receptions by the UE (DL BWP set) in a DL bandwidth by the parameter BWP-Downlink and a set of BWPs for transmissions by the UE (UL BWP set) in an UL bandwidth by the parameter BWP-Uplink for the serving cell. In some embodiments, the number of BWPs in one set may be configured and/or limited.

An initial active DL BWP may be defined by a location and number of contiguous PRBs, a subcarrier spacing, and a cyclic prefix, for the control resource set for Type0-PDCCH common search space.

<FIG> illustrates an example of switching BWPs during an intra-frequency measurement <NUM> that is illustrated in both time domain and frequency domain, in accordance with various embodiments. The UE operates within a channel BW <NUM> in this example, and there are two BWPs shown as BWP1 <NUM> and BWP2 <NUM> in the channel BW <NUM>. While the UE <NUM> operates in BWP1 <NUM> as its active BWP with its serving cell in the network, the UE <NUM> may need to perform an intra-frequency measurement of one or more SSBs 415a/b/c/d/e based on a request from the AN <NUM>. The SSBs <NUM> may be from the serving cell or a target cell, or a combination thereof, in the network.

In a conventional intra-frequency measurement, the UE <NUM> may operate at a carrier frequency and SCS in a channel BW with respect to the serving cell and one or more SSBs, which are transmitted by the same serving cell or a target cell, may be transmitted at the same carrier frequency and SCS. Thus, the UE <NUM> may not need an MG to perform the measurement of the one or more SSBs, since the UE may operate at the same carrier frequency and SCS to process data while performing the SSB measurement. However, with the introduction of BWP, the UE may operate in a BWP, which is referred to as an active BWP, while is requested to measure SSBs in another BWP in the same channel BW. For the example descriptions herein, the SSBs may be located in one BWP, which is referred to as an initial BWP. Thus, an MG may be needed in an intra-frequency measurement.

<FIG> illustrates an intra-frequency measurement of SSBs 415a and 415b without an MG because the UE <NUM> can perform both the measurement and data processing that includes data transmission, reception, etc., during an intra-frequency measurement without MG <NUM>. In this case, the BWP1 <NUM> is an active and initial BWP. Then, if a BWP switching <NUM> occurs during the intra-frequency measurement, the active BWP may be switched from BWP1 <NUM> to BWP2 <NUM>. Once the UE <NUM> does not have BWP1 as the active BWP while the SSBs 415c/d/e are still in the BWP1 <NUM>, the UE <NUM> may need an MG to measure SSBs 415c/d/e, because the UE <NUM> may not be able to operate in BWP1 and BWP2 simultaneously. Accordingly, an MG may be configured and used by the UE for an intra-frequency measurement with MG <NUM>. However, to configure an MG may require relatively longer time than BWP switching, since the MG may be configured via RRC signaling while the BWP switching may be configured via downlink channel indication (DCI) signaling. Thus, the MG may not be configured and in use until a time point <NUM>. This may cause interrupted intra-frequency measurement and one or more SSBs may not be measured, e.g., SSB 415c as illustrated in <FIG>. Meanwhile, configuring, reconfiguring, or de-configuring MG by the AN <NUM> to the UE <NUM> may also cause performance degradation and throughput loss between the UE <NUM> and the network. One existing approach is to configure the UE <NUM> with an MG in all intra-frequency measurements regardless active BWP or BWP switching. This approach may not miss SSBs to measure or cause MG rescheduling overhead. However, the UE <NUM> may not process data during the configured MG in use, even when the UE <NUM> may not need one, which may cause more inefficiency in throughput performance.

In addition, when more than one SSB in different BWPs are transmitted to the UE <NUM> (not shown in <FIG>), the UE <NUM> may have to measure all of the SSBs plainly. However, if two of the SSBs are from the same cell, it may not be necessary to measure both of them to for cell quality estimation or determination. For example, if the two SSBs contain the same transmitting parameters, it may not gain extra information by measuring the SSBs of the same parameters from the same cell in different BWPs. Further details are described with respect to <FIG>.

<FIG> illustrates an example SSB-based intra-frequency measurement <NUM> in a channel BW with multiple BWPs, in accordance with various embodiments. In embodiments, the UE <NUM> may be configured with a number of BWPs. For example, the UE may be configured with BWP1, <NUM>, and <NUM>. The configuration of one or more BWPs may be configured during a BWP configuration described earlier. In this example, BWP3 is overlapped by the BWP1 and BWP1 has a broader BW. BWP1 and BWP3 may or may not have the same SCS. Meanwhile, BWP2 occupies a different frequency range and it may have the same or a different SCS from the BWP1 or BWP3. <FIG> illustrates the AN <NUM> may transmit a first series of SSBs <NUM> associated with a serving cell in BWP1. BWP1 may be an initial BWP of the UE <NUM>. The AN <NUM> may transmit a second series of SSBs <NUM> associated with the serving cell in BWP2. A series of SSBs refers to one or more SSBs characterized in the same BWP with the same frequency and SCS from the same cell, and may be referred to as an SSB for the purposes in this disclosure. The terms "series of SSBs " and "SSB" are used interchangeably in this disclosure, unless otherwise indicated. Note that in <FIG>, both SSB <NUM> and SSB <NUM> are associated with the same serving cell. However, various embodiments herein may apply to a scenario that the SSB <NUM> and SSB <NUM> are associated with a neighbor cell or a target cell, as long as BWPs are to be defined and used. Also note that <FIG> illustrates an example with two SSBs and three BWPs, but more SSBs and/or BWPs may be the scenario and various embodiments herein applies.

In embodiments, both the SSB <NUM> and SSB <NUM> are from the same serving cell. It may be beneficial for the UE <NUM> to only measure one of the SSBs to minimize the throughput degradation due to the SSB measurement, especially when an MG is activated for the corresponding SSB measurement. Thus, the AN may configure an authorization to the UE <NUM> so that the UE <NUM> is authorized or allowed to measure only one SSB if more than one SSB associated with the same cell are transmitted in different BWPs. Or with this authorization, the UE <NUM> may be allowed to measure one or more SSBs associated with the same cell but not all of them. Various embodiments herein describe how to signal or configure a UE with such an authorization and how UE use it. This authorization may be referred as a capability as well, and the UE <NUM> need to be able to determine, among all SSBs, of which are from the same cell. However, a UE <NUM> may not automatically know that which SSBs are from the same serving cell or the same cell until it detects certain cell identification (ID) information from corresponding SSBs. Various embodiments herein describe how the UE <NUM> may be able to determine two or more SSBs are associated with the same cell and measure which one or ones of them.

In the embodiments of the invention, a linkage between each SSB and its cell may be developed so that the UE <NUM> is able to determine two or more SSBs are associated with the same cell. There are multiple approaches to realize this. Below shows some examples how the UE <NUM> may determine linkage between SSBs and cells, or how to determine whether an SSB is associated with a particular cell or serving cell. In embodiments herein, only linkages between SSBs and a serving cell is described, as it is assumed that BWP configuration is only applied to serving cells but not neighbor cells. However, some or all of the embodiments herein may also apply to neighbor cells if BWP is configured to those cells. When a BWP is configured to the UE <NUM> for downlink communications between the UE and the serving cell, a BWP-Downlink information element (IE) is configured to the UE <NUM> to indicate information regarding the BWP and other downlink information. If an SSB is to be transmitted in this BWP, a measurement object (MO) ID (MeasObjectId) is added to the BWP-Downlink IE to indicate the SSB of this BWP needs to be measured. Conventionally, the MO ID may be configured to the UE in some other configuration IEs. But by including this MO ID in the BWP-Downlink IE, the UE <NUM> can acknowledge that the SSB associated with the MO ID is from the serving cell, since the BWP-Downlink IE may correspond to the serving cell and/or carry cell information itself. Thus, the UE <NUM> may be able to determine that the SSB in this BWP-Downlink IE is associated with the serving cell.

An example BWP-Downlink IE description is illustrated below, according to<NPL>). The capability is indicated in "MeasObjectId" in the IE, as shown in bold:.

The IE BWP-Downlink is used to configure an additional downlink bandwidth part (not for the initial BWP). The field bwp-Id in this IE does not take the value <NUM> since that is reserved for the initial BWP.

In embodiments, the AN <NUM> may configure an authorization or a capability to the UE <NUM> to allow the UE <NUM> only measure one SSB associated with the same serving cell when more than one SSB are to be transmitted to the UE. Or the UE <NUM> may be allowed not to measure all of the SSBs that are associated with the same serving cell. Such an authorization may be configured to the UE <NUM> via an existing IE or a new IE. In other embodiments, this authentication may be indicated implicitly. In a non-claimed example, if the AN <NUM> has a configuration that maps a list of MO to corresponding BWPs, the UE <NUM> may consider that configuration as an indication for granting the authentication to the UE <NUM> under certain conditions.

The AN <NUM> may configure one or more BWPs that are eligible for such an operation of measuring less-than-all SSBs or only one SSB. The eligible BWPs may be indicated by a list of MOs, if the MOs are associated with BWPs that may be only configurable for the serving cell. An non-limiting examples is illustrated below, according to TS <NUM>. A list of eligible BWPs may be indicated in the IE via indications of MOs, as shown in bold:.

The IE MeasConfig specifies measurements to be performed by the UE, and covers intra-frequency, inter-frequency and inter-RAT mobility as well as configuration of measurement gaps. <IMG>
<IMG>.

In embodiments, once the UE <NUM> determines a group of SSBs are associated with the same serving cell, the UE may determine which one or ones of the group of SSBs to measure. There may be many ways to determine based on various considerations or priorities for the UE <NUM> and/or the cell/network. For example, the UE <NUM> may measure the SSB in the active BWP so that an MG may not be needed for this measurement. Such an indication of measuring the SSB of the active BWP may be configured by the AN <NUM> in one of the above illustrated IEs or in a different IE. Alternatively, the AN <NUM> may pre-configure this indication to the UE <NUM>, or the UE may have a build-in priority for SSB measurements without network configurations. An indication may be configured to the UE <NUM> as to measure one or more SSBs as long as no MG is activated. Other algorithm may be implemented for the UE <NUM> to determined which one or one of SSBs to measure.

<FIG> illustrates an operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> to facilitate a process of configuring SSB measurements associated with one serving cell in intra-frequency measurements from a UE perspective, in accordance with various embodiments. The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may be performed by the UE <NUM> or circuitry thereof.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> includes, at <NUM>, decoding, upon reception of a message from an AN, an IE that is to authorize the UE with an option to measure only one SSB corresponding to one cell if more than one SSB corresponding to the one cell are transmitted to the UE in more than one BWP. Additionally, the IE may authorize the UE <NUM> with an option to not measure all of the SSBs corresponding to the one cell. The cell may be a serving cell of the UE <NUM>. The IE may use one bit to indicate whether such an option or capability is authorized or not. This IE may be an MG configuration (MeasGapConfig) IE, which is the same as or substantially similar to the MeasGapConfig IE, or a BWP downlink IE (BWP-Downlink) that are defined in TS <NUM>. The message may further indicate one or more BWPs that are eligible for this option. Such an indication may be explicit and/or implicit.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may further include, at <NUM>, determining that a plurality of SSBs of respective BWPs correspond to a cell. In the embodiments of the invention, the UE <NUM> determines the plurality of SSBs are associated with the same cell based on respective MO information according to one or more corresponding BWP-Downlink IEs. The IE may be transmitted via broadcasting, such as SIB or PBCH, or via dedicated signaling, such as RRC or DCI signaling.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> further includes, at <NUM>, measuring one SSB of a BWP among the plurality of SSBs. Such an SSB measurement may perform with an MG or without. For example, if the SSB to be measured is in the active BWP, an MG may not be needed even if one MG already configured for such a measurement. This is because the UE <NUM> may be able to measure the SSB and process data in the same active BWP. The UE <NUM> may determine which one SSB to measure among the plurality of SSBs that are associated with the same cell. There may be various ways in making such a determination. For example, the UE <NUM> may determine to measure the SSB in an active BWP if there is one SSB in the active BWP, so that a corresponding MG may be deactivated even if configured for this measurement. If no SSBs are transmitted in any active BWPs, the UE may select the SSB based on other priorities or approaches.

<FIG> illustrates an operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> to facilitate the process of configuring SSB measurements associated with one serving cell in intra-frequency measurements from an AN perspective, in accordance with various embodiments. The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may be performed by the AN <NUM> or circuitry thereof.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may include, at <NUM>, generating an IE that is to authorize the UE with an option to measure only one SSB corresponding to one cell if more than one SSB corresponding to the one cell are transmitted to the UE in more than one BWP. The IE may be a measurement configuration (MeasConfig) IE and the IE includes a bit information to indicate the option.

The operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM> may further include, at <NUM>, transmitting the IE to the UE via RRC signaling. The AN may transmit the IE or a message that includes the IE to the UE. In addition, The AN may generate the message that include the IE for transmission.

The AN may generate a configuration message that configures a BWP switch to the UE during the intra-frequency measurement. The configuration message may include the BWP-Downlink IE or a different IE. In embodiments of the invention, the AN generates more than one BWP-Downlink IE. The BWP-Downlink IEs include MO information, based on which the UE may determine whether a particular SSB is associated with the serving cell or not. The configuration message may be transmitted to the UE via DCI.

In some embodiments, the AN may generate and transmit one or more SSBs in respective BWPs for SSB measurements. The AN may further generate and transmit respective IEs to indicate MOs with respect to those SSBs.

<FIG> illustrates example interfaces of baseband circuitry in accordance with some embodiments. As discussed above, the baseband circuitry <NUM> of <FIG> may comprise processors 204A-204E and a memory <NUM> utilized by said processors. The processors 204A-204E of the UE <NUM> may perform some or all of the operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM>, in accordance with various embodiments with respect to Figures 5A and 5B. The processors 204A-204E of the AN <NUM> may perform some or all of the operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM>, in accordance with various embodiments with respect to Figures 5A and 5B. Each of the processors 204A-204E may include a memory interface, 704A-704E, respectively, to send/receive data to/from the memory <NUM>. The processors 204A-204E of the UE <NUM> may be used to process the SFTD measurement; the processors 204A-204E of the AN <NUM> may be used to generate the SFTD measurement configuration.

The baseband circuitry <NUM> may further include one or more interfaces to communicatively couple to other circuitries/devices, such as a memory interface <NUM> (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from memory external to the baseband circuitry <NUM>), an application circuitry interface <NUM> (for example, an interface to send/receive data to/from the application circuitry <NUM> of <FIG>), an RF circuitry interface <NUM> (for example, an interface to send/receive data to/from RF circuitry <NUM> of <FIG>), a wireless hardware connectivity interface <NUM> (for example, an interface to send/receive data to/from Near Field Communication (NFC) components, Bluetooth® components (for example, Bluetooth® Low Energy), Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components), and a power management interface <NUM> (for example, an interface to send/receive power or control signals).

<FIG> is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (for example, 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 (for example, network function virtualization (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> (for example, a central processing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a digital signal processor (DSP) such as a baseband processor, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor, or any suitable combination thereof) may include, for example, a processor <NUM> and a processor <NUM>.

The memory/storage devices <NUM> may include, but are not limited to, any type of volatile or non-volatile memory such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random-access memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), Flash memory, solid-state storage, etc..

For example, the communication resources <NUM> may include wired communication components (for example, for coupling via a Universal Serial Bus (USB)), cellular communication components, NFC components, Bluetooth components (for example, Bluetooth Low Energy), 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, e.g., the operation flows <NUM> and <NUM>. For example, in an embodiment in which the hardware resources <NUM> are implemented into the UE <NUM>, the instructions <NUM> may cause the UE to perform some or all of the operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM>. In other embodiments, the hardware resources <NUM> may be implemented into the AN <NUM>. The instructions <NUM> may cause the AN <NUM> to perform some or all of the operation flow/algorithmic structure <NUM>. The instructions <NUM> may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processors <NUM> (for example, 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.

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

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

Claim 1:
One or more computer-readable media comprising instructions to, upon execution of the instructions by one or more processors of a user equipment, UE, cause the UE to:
decode, upon reception of a message from an access node, AN, an information element, IE, that authorizes the UE (<NUM>, <NUM>) with an option to measure only one synchronization signal block, SSB, corresponding to one cell, if a plurality of SSBs (<NUM>) corresponding to the one cell are transmitted to the UE (<NUM>, <NUM>) in a plurality of bandwidth parts, BWPs;
decode, upon reception, a plurality of BWP-downlink IEs that configure the respective BWPs, wherein the BWP-downlink IEs of those BWPs on which the plurality of SSBs (<NUM>) are transmitted include a measurement object, MO, identifications, IDs; and
determine that the plurality of SSBs (<NUM>) transmitted to the UE (<NUM>, <NUM>) in the respective BWPs correspond to the one cell based on the MO IDs included in the plurality of BWP-downlink IEs;
measure one SSB of a BWP among the plurality of SSBs (<NUM>) of respective BWPs for which the BWP-downlink IE includes a MO ID.