Patent Description:
The following abbreviations are herewith defined, some of which are referred to within the following description: Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), Frequency Division Duplex (FDD), Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA), Long Term Evolution (LTE), New Radio (NR), Very Large.

Scale Integration (VLSI), Random Access Memory (RAM), Read-Only Memory (ROM), Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM or Flash Memory), Compact Disc Read-Only Memory (CD-ROM), Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN), Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), User Equipment (UE), Uplink (UL), Evolved Node B (eNB), Next Generation Node B (gNB), New Radio (NR), Downlink (DL), Central Processing Unit (CPU),.

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), Dynamic RAM (DRAM), Synchronous Dynamic RAM (SDRAM), Static RAM (SRAM), Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), Light Emitting Diode (LED), Organic LED (OLED), Multiple-input Multiple-Output (MIMO), Frequency Range <NUM> (FR2), Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH), Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), Sounding Reference Signal (SRS), SRS Resource Indicator (SRI), Downlink Control Information (DCI), Resource Block (RB), Non Zero Power (NZP) Channel State Information Reference Signal (CSI-RS), Control Resource Set (CORESET), Bandwidth Part (B WP), Quasi Co-location (QCL), Transmission Configuration Indicator (TCI).

The SRS is a reference signal transmitted by the UE in the uplink direction which is used by the gNB to estimate the uplink channel quality over a wide bandwidth. The gNB may use the estimated channel quality to determine the uplink and/or downlink transmission schemes.

<NPL>, which discusses codebook based UL transmission on SRS time domain behaviour. <NPL>, which discusses a scheme to support antenna switching via SRS resource set for codebook/non-codebook based transmission without additional specification impact.

A method performed by a base unit, a method performed by a remote unit, a remote unit, a data processing device and a base unit are defined by the appended claims <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM> respectively.

In the following, apparatus and/or methods referred to as embodiments that nevertheless do not fall within the scope of the claims should be understood as examples useful for understanding the invention.

Understanding that these drawings depict only some embodiments, and are not therefore to be considered to be limiting of scope, the embodiments will be described and explained with additional specificity and detail through the use of the accompanying drawings, in which:.

Accordingly, embodiments may take the form of an entire hardware embodiment, an entire software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may generally all be referred to herein as a "circuit", "module" or "system". Furthermore, embodiments may take the form of a program product embodied in one or more computer readable storage devices storing machine-readable code, computer readable code, and/or program code, referred to hereafter as "code".

Certain functional units described in this specification may be labeled as "modules", in order to more particularly emphasize their independent implementation. For example, a module may be implemented as a hardware circuit comprising custom very-large-scale integration (VLSI) circuits or gate arrays, off-the-shelf semiconductors such as logic chips, transistors, or other discrete components.

This operational data may be collected as a single data set, or may be distributed over different locations including over different computer readable storage devices.

The storage device may be, for example, but need not necessarily be, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, holographic, micromechanical, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

A non-exhaustive list of more specific examples of the storage device would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash Memory), portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. In the context of this document, a computer-readable storage medium may be any tangible medium that can contain or store a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

Code for carrying out operations for embodiments may be any number of lines and may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages including an object-oriented programming language such as Python, Ruby, Java, Smalltalk, C++, or the like, and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the "C" programming language, or the like, and/or machine languages such as assembly languages. The code may be executed entirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the very last scene, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).

In other instances, well-known structures, materials, or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid any obscuring of aspects of an embodiment.

This code 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 are executed via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified in the schematic flowchart diagrams and/or schematic block diagrams for the block or blocks.

The code may also be stored in a storage device that can direct a computer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other devices, to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the storage device produce an article of manufacture including instructions which implement the function/act specified in the schematic flowchart diagrams and/or schematic block diagrams block or blocks.

The code may also be loaded onto a computer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other devices, to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer, other programmable apparatus or other devices to produce a computer implemented process such that the code executed on the computer or other programmable apparatus provides processes for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

In new radio (NR), codebook-based transmission is used by the network to decide an uplink transmission rank, i.e., the number of layers to be transmitted, and a corresponding precoder matrix to be used for the transmission. The network informs the UE about the selected transmission rank and precoder matrix as part of the uplink scheduling grant. At the UE side, the precoder matrix is applied for the scheduled PUSCH transmission, mapping the indicated number of layers to the antenna ports. In contrast, non-codebook-based transmission is based on UE measurements and UE determine its prefered precoder for the PUSCH transmission. Based on downlink measurements, the UE selects a suitable uplink precoder. Non-codebook-based precoding is based on an assumption of channel reciprocity, that is, the UE can acquire detailed knowledge of the uplink channel based on downlink measurements.

Non-codebook based UL transmission was supported in NR Release <NUM>, while only transmission from single panel using single beam is supported. Support of multi-panel/multi- transmit-receive point (TRP) UL MIMO operation will be included in NR Release <NUM>. Enhancements on multi-TRP/panel transmission include improved reliability and robustness with both ideal and non-ideal backhaul. Specifying UL transmit beam selection for multi-panel operation will facilitate panel-specific beam selection. The non-codebook based PUSCH transmission cannot work well in FR2 based on the Rel-<NUM> as described in TS <NUM> since the UE cannot determine the QCL assumption to receive the associated NZP CSI-RS. The CSI-RS is located in the same slot as the SRS request field contained in the DCI. If the UE configured with aperiodic SRS associated with aperiodic NZP CSI-RS resource, any of the TCI states configured in the scheduled component carrier (CC) shall not be configured with 'QCL-TypeD'. Single panel based non-codebook based PUSCH transmission can be scheduled by DCI format 0_1 with a single SRI in Release -<NUM>, the SRI defined in the DCI is used to indicate the precoder for PUSCH transmission.

For the case that a UE equipped with two or more panels and PUSCH or SRS from any two panels can be transmitted simultaneously in FR2, a dedicated SRI is needed for each panel to indicate the spatial relation for the PUSCH from this panel.

This invention is aimed to support non-codebook based PUSCH transmission for the UE equipped with multiple panels communicates with one or more TRPs.

<FIG> illustrates one embodiment of a wireless communication system.

One typical scenario (scenario <NUM>) is that the UE transmits PUSCH with multiple panels (e.g. Panel <NUM> and Panel <NUM> as shown in <FIG>) to multiple TRPs (e.g. TRP <NUM> and TRP <NUM> as shown in <FIG>) simultaneously using different beams as illustrated in <IMG>!<IMG> <IMG>∘. At least one SRI (e.g. SRI indication <NUM> and SRI indication <NUM> as shown in <FIG>) should be indicated for the PUSCH transmission from each panel for precoder and/or beam indication. And the corresponding SRS configuration should also be enhanced to support this operation.

Only single panel based UL transmission can be supported in current Release -<NUM> NR. The scheme defined in Rel-<NUM> NR cannot support the scenario illustrated in <FIG>. The difference between single-panel and multi-panel cases is that the UE should use multiple beams to transmit PUSCH through multiple panels. The main issue in the scenario shown in <FIG> is how to indicate two or more transmission beams and how to determine the precoder for multiple panels and the relevant SRS configurations.

According to one embodiment, two or more SRS resource sets (e.g. SRS resource set <NUM> and SRS resource set <NUM> as shown in <FIG>) each with one or more SRS resources should be configured by higher layer parameters for a UE with usage set to 'nonCodebook' if the uplink transmission scheme is set to 'nonCodebook' , and one NZP CSI-RS resource should be associated with each SRS resource set, for example, NZP CSI-RS <NUM> is associated with SRS resource set <NUM>, and NZP CSI-RS <NUM> is associated with SRS resource set <NUM> as shown in <FIG>. Only one SRS port can be configured for each SRS resource.

All SRS resources within one SRS resource set should be configured with the same spatial relation information, for example with same spatialRelationInfo value. Here, the spatialRelationInfo is used to indicate the transmission beam for SRS resource. SRS resources from different SRS resource sets can be configured to the UE in the same resource block (RB) for simultaneous transmission.

The quasi co-location information is used to indicate the receiver beam to receive the NZP CSI-RS. If the UE configured with aperiodic SRS associated with aperiodic NZP CSI-RS resource, qcl-info shall be configured for the CSI-RS resource in the SRS-config information element(IE) as shown in Table <NUM> for the UE to determine the QCL assumption to receive the associated CSI-RS. In table <NUM>, the qcl-Info is indicated with one TCI-StateID.

The UE shall receive DCI and NZP CSI-RS using the same or different beams. Time gap is needed for the UE to switch between beams. If the offset between the reception of the DCI carrying the SRS request and the transmission of corresponding aperiodic NZP CSI-RS is not enough, the UE may have no time to switch the receiving beam. For the UE with beam correspondence, the transmitting beam is the same as the receiving beam. For the case that the gNB does not configure qcl-info for the UE, the UE can receive the NZP CSI-RS using the beam indicated by spatialRelationInfo for SRS transmission.

If the offset between the reception of the UL grant carrying the SRS request and the transmission of corresponding aperiodic NZP CSI-RS is equal or larger than a UE reported threshold, e.g. the UE reported ThresholdSched-Offset, two alternatives are provided to determine the QCL assumption for the NZP CSI-RS reception:.

If the offset between the reception of the UL grant carrying the SRS request and the transmission of corresponding aperiodic NZP CSI-RS is less than the UE reported ThresholdSched-Offset, two alternatives are provided for the UE to determine the QCL assumption for the NZP CSI-RS reception:.

For the multiple SRS resource sets configured for a non-codebook solution, multiple SRI fields should be contained in the UL grant to schedule a multiple codewords (CW) (e.g. CW0 and CW1 as shown in <FIG>) based PUSCH transmission. Each SRI field is used to indicate the SRS resources defined in the corresponding SRS resource set. The UE determines the precoding matrix and the transmission rank for each CW according to the corresponding SRI fields. SRI indication defined in TS38. <NUM> in Release <NUM> is reused for each SRI part.

<FIG> is a schematic diagram illustrating single SRS resource set configuration for non-codebook based PUSCH transmission with multi-panel and multi-TRP according to another embodiment.

Another typical scenario (scenario <NUM>) is that the UE transmits PUSCH with multiple panels (e.g. Panel <NUM> and Panel <NUM> as shown in <FIG>) to multiple TRPs (e.g. TRP <NUM> and TRP <NUM> as shown in <FIG>) simultaneously using different beams as illustrated in <FIG>. Single SRS resource set (e.g. SRS resource set <NUM> as shown in <FIG>) configuration for non-codebook based PUSCH transmission with multi-panel and multi-TRP. The scheme defined in Release <NUM> NR cannot support the scenario illustrated in <FIG>.

One SRS resource set with at least two SRS resources can be configured by higher layer parameters with usage set to 'nonCodebook' if uplink transmission scheme is set to 'nonCodebook' , and one or more NZP CSI-RS resources should be associated with this one SRS resource set, for example, NZP CSI-RS <NUM> and NZP CSI-RS <NUM> are associated with SRS resource set <NUM> as shown in <FIG>. Only one SRS port can be configured for each SRS resource in the set. SRS resources in this set can be configured with different spatialRelationInfo values. SRS resources in this one SRS resource set with different spatialRelationInfo can be configured to the UE in the same RB for simultaneous transmission.

If the UE configured with aperiodic SRS associated with aperiodic NZP CSI-RS resource, qcl-info shall be configured for each CSI-RS resource in the SRS-config IE as shown in Table <NUM> for the UE to determine the QCL assumption to receive the associated CSI-RS.

In table <NUM>, one csi-RS is associated with two qcl-info, i.e., qcl-info0 and qcl-info1, by which the application is not limited to, and a plurality of csi-RS being associated with a plurality of qcl-info are also available.

If the offset between the reception of the UL grant carrying the SRS request and the transmission of corresponding aperiodic NZP CSI-RS is equal or larger than the UE reported ThresholdSched-Offset, two alternatives are provided to determine the QCL assumption for the NZP CSI-RS reception:.

<NUM>: The UE determines the QCL assumption according to the qcl-info parameter configured by higher layer parameters if qcl-info is configured.

<NUM>: The UE determines the QCL assumption according to the spatialRelationInfo parameter configured by higher layer parameters if qcl-info is not configured.

If the offset between the reception of the UL grant carrying the SRS request and the transmission of corresponding aperiodic NZP CSI-RS is less than the UE reported ThresholdSched-Offset, two alternatives are provided to determine the QCL assumption for the NZP CSI-RS reception:.

Only one SRI field with two parts (e.g. SRI indication part <NUM> and SRI indication part <NUM> as shown in <FIG>) is required in the UL grant to indicate the precoding matrix and transmission rank to schedule a multiple codewords (CW) (e.g. CW0 and CW1 as shown in <FIG>) based PUSCH transmission. A codepoint of the SRI part in the SRI field is mapped to one or more SRI with the same spatialRelationInfo. The UE performs one to one mapping from the indicated SRI(s) to SRS resources with the same spatialRelationInfo value in increasing order.

All SRS resources with the same spatialRelationInfo are ordered by the increasing index for SRI indication. SRI indication defined in TS38. <NUM> in Rel-<NUM> is reused for each SRI part.

Taking <NUM> SRS resources in one SRS resource set for example, a UE is configured with the following SRS resource set.

SRS resource set:
{
SRS resource <NUM> with spatialRelationInfo0
SRS resource <NUM> with spatialRelationInfo1
SRS resource <NUM> with spatialRelationInfo0
SRS resource <NUM> with spatialRelationInfo1
SRS resource <NUM> with spatialRelationInfo0
SRS resource <NUM> with spatialRelationInfo1
SRS resource <NUM> with spatialRelationInfo0
SRS resource <NUM> with spatialRelationInfo1
}
SRI=<NUM> in the first part maps to SRS resource <NUM>. SRI=<NUM> in the first part maps to SRS resource <NUM>
SRI=<NUM> in the first part maps to SRS resource <NUM>
SRI=<NUM> in the first part maps to SRS resource <NUM>
SRI=<NUM> in the second part maps to SRS resource <NUM>
SRI=<NUM> in the second part maps to SRS resource <NUM>
SRI=<NUM> in the second part maps to SRS resource <NUM>
SRI=<NUM> in the second part maps to SRS resource <NUM>.

With this configuration, the number of selections of SRS resources from the set may be decreased from <MAT> to <MAT>, therefore the overhead and computing complexity can be reduced.

<FIG> is a schematic flow chart diagram illustrating a method for a gNB to configure the SRS resource sets according to one embodiment.

As illustrated in <FIG>, the method for a gNB to configure the SRS resource sets for a UE and transmit the same is shown.

At step <NUM>, the gNB transmits higher layer parameters to configure two or more SRS resource sets (scenario <NUM>) or one SRS resource set including at least two SRS resources (scenario <NUM>) together with the necessary related information for the UE.

At step <NUM>, the gNB transmits a first DCI including SRS request to a UE to trigger an aperiodic NZP CSI-RS transmission and an aperiodic SRS transmission.

At step <NUM>, the gNB receives aperiodic SRS from the UE.

At step <NUM>, the gNB transmits a second DCI including one (solution <NUM>) or more (solution <NUM>) SRI fields based on the received aperiodic SRS resources.

The detail SRS resource sets configuration progress is described with reference to <FIG> and <FIG>.

<FIG> is a schematic flow chart diagram illustrating a method for a UE to determining the SRS resource sets according to one embodiment.

As illustrated in <FIG>, the method for a UE to determine the SRS resource sets according to the data from a gNB is shown.

At step <NUM>, a UE receives a first DCI from a gNB.

At step <NUM>, the UE receives aperiodic NZP CSI-RS resource based on the received first DCI and the higher layer parameters.

At step <NUM>, the UE transmits aperiodic SRS resources based on the received NZP CSI-RS and the higher layer parameters.

At step <NUM>, the UE receives a second DCI including one (solution <NUM>) or more (solution <NUM>) SRI fields from the gNB.

At step <NUM>, the UE transmits PUSCH to multiple TRPs based on the received second DCI.

The way by which the UE determines the QCL assumption has been described with reference to <FIG> and <FIG>.

<FIG> is a schematic block diagram illustrating a UE and gNB.

Referring to <FIG>, The UE includes a processor, a memory, and a transceiver. The processor implements a function, a process, and/or a method which are proposed in <FIG> above. The gNB includes a processor, a memory, and a transceiver. The processors implement a function, a process, and/or a method which are proposed in <FIG> above. Layers of a radio interface protocol may be implemented by the processors. The memories are connected with the processors to store various pieces of information for driving the processors. The transceivers are connected with the processors to transmit and/or receive a radio signal.

The memories may be positioned inside or outside the processors and connected with the processors by various well-known means. Further, the relay node may have a single antenna or multiple antennas.

In the embodiments described above, the components and the features of the embodiments are combined in a predetermined form. Each component or feature should be considered as an option unless otherwise expressly stated. Each component or feature may be implemented not to be associated with other components or features. Further, the embodiment may be configured by associating some components and/or features. The order of the operations described in the embodiments may be changed. Some components or features of any embodiment may be included in another embodiment or replaced with the component and the feature corresponding to another embodiment.

The embodiments may be implemented by hardware, firmware, software, or combinations thereof. In the case of implementation by hardware, according to hardware implementation, the exemplary embodiment described herein may be implemented by using one or more application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), digital signal processors (DSPs), digital signal processing devices (DSPDs), programmable logic devices (PLDs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), processors, controllers, micro-controllers, microprocessors, and the like.

This disclosure proposes two SRS configuration schemes to support a non-codebook based PUSCH transmission with multi-panel and/or multi-beam. According to the embodiments described above, two or more SRS resource sets are configured for a non-codebook based UL transmission, wherein the SRS resources in one set is configured with the same spatialRelationInfo value, and the SRS resources in different sets can be transmitted simultaneously. One SRS resource set with at least two SRS resources is configured for a non-codebook based UL transmission, wherein the SRS resources with different spatialRelationInfo values can be transmitted simultaneously. Two or more NZP CSI-RS resources can be configured for one SRS resource set for non-codebook. The gNB should configure the qcl-info for associated NZP CSI-RS resource to determine the QCL assumption for the reception of NZP CSI-RS. The embodiments further describe the method for a UE to determine the QCL assumption for the reception of NZP CSI-RS for different schedule offsets and the method for a UE to determine the SRS resources for PUSCH transmission according to the one SRI field with two parts.

Claim 1:
A method performed by a base unit, the method comprising:
transmitting higher layer parameters to configure two or more sounding reference signal, SRS, resource sets for a non-codebook based physical uplink share channel, PUSCH, transmission, wherein each SRS resource set is associated with a non-zero power, NZP, channel state information reference signal, CSI-RS; and
transmitting one downlink control information, DCI, including two or more SRS indicator, SRI, fields for indicating the SRS resources defined in each corresponding SRS resource set, wherein all of the SRS resources in the same SRS resource set are configured with the same spatial relation information.