CN110913476B

CN110913476B - Communication method and communication device

Info

Publication number: CN110913476B
Application number: CN201811072868.7A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 刘凤威; 陈磊; 邱晶
Original assignee: Chengdu Huawei Technology Co Ltd
Current assignee: Chengdu Huawei Technology Co Ltd
Priority date: 2018-09-14
Filing date: 2018-09-14
Publication date: 2022-06-28
Anticipated expiration: 2038-09-14
Also published as: CN110913476A; WO2020052554A1

Abstract

The application provides a communication method and a communication device. The communication method comprises the following steps: the network equipment determines the length of a symbol carrying the control information of the terminal equipment, and further, the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal equipment is one of the lengths of K symbols to be detected, wherein K is a positive integer, and the network equipment sends the control information to the terminal equipment through the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal equipment. According to the technical scheme, the network equipment can flexibly select the length of the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment.

Description

Communication method and communication device

Technical Field

The present application relates to the field of communications, and more particularly, to a communication method and a communication apparatus.

Background

In a New Radio (NR), a typical scheduling manner for a network device to schedule a terminal device is time-slot-based frequency division multiplexing (tdm) scheduling, that is, a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) of a single terminal device occupies one time slot or multiple symbols of one time slot in a time domain, and occupies a part of available bandwidth in a frequency domain. A plurality of terminal devices share the downlink bandwidth. In this case, in order to schedule a plurality of terminal apparatuses for frequency division multiplexing, the network apparatus needs to transmit a plurality of Physical Downlink Control Channels (PDCCHs).

In order to combat the severe propagation losses, beam-based communication is typically employed between the network device and the terminal device in the high frequency band. For the downlink, the number of transmit beams that a network device can simultaneously maintain is limited, while different terminal devices may need to be served by different beams. Therefore, the network device can transmit the downlink signal to only a small number of terminal devices at one time.

As the frequency band increases, the beam maintaining communication should also be narrower. In this case, the probability that a plurality of terminal devices are located in the same beam is also lower, and thus in a high frequency band (for example, above 52.6 GHz), the frequency division multiplexing scenario of the terminal devices is reduced. If the terminal device does not perform frequency division multiplexing, the network device may allocate the entire bandwidth to the terminal device in order to ensure the spectrum utilization rate. In the high frequency band, the system bandwidth can reach more than 2GHz, and at this time, the data volume of the terminal device generally is difficult to occupy the whole time slot in the time domain while the frequency domain occupies the whole bandwidth.

Therefore, under the constraints of high-frequency narrow beams and large bandwidth, full-bandwidth or large-bandwidth time division scheduling is a typical downlink scheduling method, and the time domain granularity of scheduling is generally one time slot or less than one time slot. For example, the time domain granularity may be as low as 1-2 symbols, such as an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) symbol, a discrete fourier transform spread orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DFT-s-OFDM) symbol, or a single carrier-QAM (SC-QAM) symbol, where DFT refers to Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT).

In order to ensure the downlink transmission rate, the number of symbols occupied by the PDSCH is generally greater than the number of symbols occupied by the PDCCH, and since each symbol can only be transmitted by using one beam, the number of beams for transmitting the PDCCH is smaller than the number of beams for transmitting the PDSCH, so that the network device cannot transmit scheduling information to all terminal devices scheduled with the PDSCH through the PDCCH to schedule the terminal devices located on different beams.

Disclosure of Invention

The application provides a communication method and a communication device, wherein a network device can flexibly select the length of a symbol bearing control information of a terminal device.

In a first aspect, a communication method is provided, where the method includes: the network equipment determines the length of a symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment, wherein the length of the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment is one of the lengths of K symbols to be detected, and K is a positive integer; the network equipment sends the control information to the terminal equipment through the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment.

According to the communication method provided by the embodiment of the application, the network device first determines the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device, and the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device is one of the lengths of K symbols to be detected, wherein K is a positive integer. That is, the network device may flexibly select the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device from the lengths of the plurality of symbols to be detected configured for the terminal device according to the communication system condition.

It should be understood that the lengths of the K symbols to be detected, configured by the network device for the terminal device, may be configured fixedly or randomly, or may be configured based on a communication history with the terminal device, and the application does not limit how the network device configures the symbols to be detected for the terminal device. Further, the length of the K symbols to be detected may also be protocol-specified.

It should also be understood that the length of at least one of the K symbols to be detected is smaller than the length of the control resource. The length of the control resource indicates a time unit occupied by the control resource in a time domain, and the control resource is a time-frequency resource of a control channel.

That is to say, the network device may determine, according to different requirements of the multiple served terminal devices for the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device, the symbol including the control information of the multiple different carrying terminal devices in the time unit occupied by the control resource in the time domain.

The symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device is used for sending the control information to a plurality of terminal devices served by the network device, and the network device can send the control information to the plurality of terminal devices through a plurality of beams, so that the network device can send the control information to the plurality of terminal devices located in different beams.

With reference to the first aspect, in some implementation manners of the first aspect, the network device sends length information of the K symbols to be detected to the terminal device.

According to the communication method provided by the embodiment of the application, the network equipment sends the length information of the symbols to be detected to the terminal equipment, so that the terminal equipment can correctly analyze the received control information.

It should be understood that, when the network device sends length information of a plurality of symbols to be detected to the terminal device, the terminal device may determine, according to a DCI detection result carried by a symbol carrying control information of the terminal device, an actual length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device.

It should also be understood that, since the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device is one of the lengths of the K symbols to be detected, the length information of the K symbols to be detected sent by the network device to the terminal device includes the information of the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device.

With reference to the first aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the first aspect, in another implementation manner of the first aspect, each piece of length information of the K symbols to be detected includes: and the numerical value N represents that the length of the symbol to be detected is N times of the length of the unit symbol, and N is a positive integer.

According to the communication method provided by the embodiment of the application, the network device sends the length information of the symbol to be detected to the terminal device, and the length information can be used for indicating the length of the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal device. For example, the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device is N times the length of the unit symbol. Provided that the length of the unit symbol is known to the terminal device. When the terminal equipment learns that the length of the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment is N times of the length of the unit symbol, the length of the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment can be calculated according to the multiple relation.

With reference to the first aspect and the foregoing implementation manner, in another implementation manner of the first aspect, the length of the unit symbol is a preset value, or the network device sends length information of the unit symbol to the terminal device.

According to the communication method provided by the embodiment of the application, the terminal device knows the length of the unit symbol, so that the terminal device can calculate the length of the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal device according to the length information of the symbol to be detected.

The length of the unit symbol may be known by the terminal device because the length of the unit symbol is preset, or the terminal device receives the length information of the unit symbol sent by the network device, and determines the length of the unit symbol according to the length information of the unit symbol. A flexible determination scheme is provided for the terminal device to know the length of the unit symbol.

With reference to the first aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the first aspect, in another implementation manner of the first aspect, the time domain position of the symbol that carries the control information of the terminal device indicates a position of a control channel and/or a data channel of the terminal device.

According to the communication method provided by the embodiment of the application, the time domain position of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal equipment can indicate the position of the control channel and/or the data channel of the terminal equipment in a concealed manner.

With reference to the first aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the first aspect, in another implementation manner of the first aspect, the method further includes: the network equipment sends at least one of the following information to the terminal equipment: beam information of a symbol carrying control information of a terminal device; time domain information of a symbol carrying control information of a terminal device.

According to the communication method provided by the embodiment of the application, the network equipment sends the beam information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal equipment and/or the time domain information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal equipment to the terminal equipment, so that the terminal equipment can correctly receive the control information sent to the terminal equipment by the network equipment through the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal equipment.

With reference to the first aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the first aspect, in another implementation manner of the first aspect, the beam information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device includes at least one of the following information: a demodulation reference signal in a symbol bearing control information of terminal equipment and a preset reference signal have a spatial quasi co-location (QCL) relationship; the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal device and the preset reference signal have a spatial quasi co-location QCL relationship.

According to the communication method provided by the embodiment of the present application, the beam information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device, which is sent by the network device to the terminal device, may be that the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device has a spatial quasi-co-located QCL relationship with the preset reference signal, and/or that a demodulation reference signal in the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device has a spatial quasi-co-located QCL relationship with the preset reference signal, so that the terminal device can determine, according to the beam receiving the preset reference signal, the beam receiving the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device.

It should be understood that the predetermined reference signal may be a Synchronization Signal Block (SSB) or a channel state information-reference signal (CSI-RS).

With reference to the first aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the first aspect, in another implementation manner of the first aspect, the time domain information of the symbol that carries the control information of the terminal device includes at least one of the following information: the method comprises the steps of carrying out time domain position of a symbol of control information of terminal equipment and detecting the period and offset of the symbol of the control information of the terminal equipment; the method comprises the steps of carrying out time domain starting position of a symbol of control information of terminal equipment and detecting the period and offset of the symbol of the control information of the terminal equipment.

According to the communication method provided by the embodiment of the application, the time domain information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal equipment is sent to the terminal equipment by the network equipment, so that the terminal equipment determines and detects the time domain position of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal equipment according to the time domain information.

In a second aspect, a communication method is provided, including: the method comprises the steps that terminal equipment receives control information sent by network equipment through a symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment, wherein the length of the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment is one of the lengths of K symbols to be detected, and K is a positive integer; and the terminal equipment analyzes the control information.

According to the communication method provided by the embodiment of the application, the terminal device can receive the control information sent by the network device through the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal device, and analyze the control information. And the length of the symbol for bearing the control information of the terminal equipment is one of the lengths of the K symbols to be detected, and the length of the symbol for bearing the control information of the terminal equipment is flexibly selected according to the actual condition of the terminal equipment.

Further, at least one of the lengths of the K symbols to be detected is smaller than the length of the control resource of the network device. The length of the control resource indicates a time unit occupied by the control resource in a time domain, and the control resource is a time-frequency resource of a control channel.

That is, the network device may determine the control information symbols of a plurality of different terminal devices according to different length requirements of the serving terminal devices for the control information symbols of the terminal devices, based on the time unit occupied by the control resource in the time domain.

The symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device is used to send the control information to a plurality of terminal devices served by the network device, and the network device may send the control information to the plurality of terminal devices through a plurality of beams, so that the plurality of terminal devices may be located in different beams.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: and the terminal equipment receives the length information of the K symbols to be detected sent by the network equipment.

According to the communication method provided by the embodiment of the application, the terminal equipment can receive the length information of the symbols to be detected, which is sent by the network equipment, and the terminal equipment can correctly analyze the received control information through the length information.

It should be understood that, when the terminal device receives length information of a plurality of symbols to be detected sent by the network device, the terminal device may determine, according to a DCI detection result carried by a symbol carrying control information of the terminal device, an actual length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device.

With reference to the second aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the second aspect, in another implementation manner of the second aspect, each piece of length information of the K symbols to be detected includes: and the numerical value N represents that the length of the symbol to be detected is N times of the length of the unit symbol, and N is a positive integer.

According to the communication method provided by the embodiment of the application, the terminal device receives the length information of the symbol to be detected, which is sent by the network device, and the length information can be used for indicating the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device. For example, the length of a symbol carrying control information of a terminal device is N times the length of a unit symbol. The premise is that the terminal equipment knows the length of the unit symbol, and when the terminal equipment knows that the length of the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment is N times of the length of the unit symbol, the length of the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment can be calculated according to the multiple relation.

With reference to the second aspect and the foregoing implementation manner, in another implementation manner of the second aspect, the length of the unit symbol is a preset value, or the terminal device receives length information of the unit symbol sent by the network device.

The length of the unit symbol may be known by the terminal device because the length of the unit symbol is preset, or the terminal device receives the length information of the unit symbol sent by the network device, and determines the length of the unit symbol according to the length information of the unit symbol. A flexible determination scheme is provided for the length of the unit symbol known to the terminal device.

With reference to the second aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the second aspect, in another implementation manner of the second aspect, a time domain position of a symbol carrying control information of a terminal device indicates a position of a control channel and/or a data channel of the terminal device.

According to the communication method provided by the embodiment of the application, the time domain position of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal equipment can indicate the position of the control channel and/or the data channel of the terminal equipment in a hidden manner.

With reference to the second aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the second aspect, in another implementation manner of the second aspect, the method further includes: the terminal equipment receives at least one of the following information sent by the network equipment: beam information of a symbol carrying control information of a terminal device; time domain information of a symbol carrying control information of the terminal device.

According to the communication method provided by the embodiment of the application, the terminal device receives the beam information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device and/or the time domain information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device, which is sent by the network device, so that the terminal device can correctly receive the control information sent to the terminal device by the network device through the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device.

With reference to the second aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the second aspect, in another implementation manner of the second aspect, the beam information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device includes at least one of the following information: a demodulation reference signal in a symbol carrying control information of the terminal equipment has a spatial quasi-co-location QCL relationship with a preset reference signal; the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device has a spatial quasi co-located QCL relationship with the preset reference signal.

According to the communication method provided by the embodiment of the present application, the beam information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device, which is sent by the network device and received by the terminal device, may be that the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device has a spatial quasi co-located QCL relationship with a preset reference signal, and/or that a demodulation reference signal in the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device has a spatial quasi co-located QCL relationship with a preset reference signal, so that the terminal device can determine, according to the beam receiving the preset reference signal, a beam receiving the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device.

It should be understood that the predetermined reference signal may be an SSB or a CSI-RS.

With reference to the second aspect and the foregoing implementation manner of the second aspect, in another implementation manner of the second aspect, the time domain information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device includes at least one of the following information: the method comprises the steps of carrying the time domain position of a symbol of control information of terminal equipment and detecting the period and the offset of the symbol of the control information of the terminal equipment; the method comprises the steps of carrying the time domain starting position of the symbol of the control information of the terminal equipment and detecting the period and the offset of the symbol of the control information of the terminal equipment.

According to the communication method provided by the embodiment of the application, the terminal equipment receives the time domain information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal equipment, which is sent by the network equipment, so that the terminal equipment determines and detects the time domain position of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal equipment according to the time domain information.

In a third aspect, a communication apparatus is provided, which may be used to perform the operations of the first aspect and the network device in any possible implementation manner of the first aspect. In particular, the communication apparatus comprising means (means) corresponding to performing the steps or functions described above for the first aspect may be a network device of the first aspect. The steps or functions may be implemented by software, or hardware, or by a combination of hardware and software.

In a fourth aspect, a communication apparatus is provided, which may be used to perform the operations of the second aspect and the terminal device in any possible implementation manner of the second aspect. In particular, the communication apparatus comprising means (means) corresponding to performing the steps or functions described above in relation to the second aspect may be a terminal device of the second aspect. The steps or functions may be implemented by software, or hardware, or by a combination of hardware and software.

In a fifth aspect, a communication device is provided, and the communication device includes a processor in its structure. The processor is configured to enable the communication device to perform the functions of the first aspect or the second aspect and various implementations thereof, and in one possible design, the communication device may further include a transceiver to enable the communication device to receive or transmit information.

In one possible design, the communication device may also include a memory for coupling with the processor to store necessary program instructions and data in the communication device.

Alternatively, the communication device comprises a memory for storing a computer program and a processor for calling and running the computer program from the memory, so that the communication device performs the communication method of any one of the first or second aspects and its various implementations.

In a sixth aspect, there is provided a computer program product comprising: computer program (also called code, or instructions), which when executed, causes a computer to perform the communication method in any of the possible implementations of the first or second aspect described above.

In a seventh aspect, a computer-readable storage medium is provided, which stores a program that causes a server in a computer to execute any one of the communication methods of the first or second aspects and their various implementations.

Alternatively, the computer-readable storage medium is used for storing computer software instructions for the server, which include a program designed to execute any one of the communication methods in any one of the possible implementations of the first aspect or the second aspect.

In an eighth aspect, a chip system is provided, which includes a processor for enabling a server in a computer to implement the functions referred to in the first or second aspect and various implementations thereof.

According to the communication method and the communication device, the network equipment sends the control information to the terminal equipment through the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment, the length of the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment is one of the lengths of K symbols to be detected, and K is a positive integer, so that the network equipment can flexibly select the length of the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of an example of a communication system to which a communication method and a communication apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention are applied.

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a communication method provided in an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 3 is a symbol diagram of control information of different length bearing terminal devices.

Fig. 4 is a symbol diagram of another control information of different length bearing terminal devices.

Fig. 5 is a symbol diagram of control information of another different length carrying terminal device.

Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of a unit symbol.

Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram of an SC-QAM symbol.

Fig. 8 is a symbol diagram for carrying control information of a terminal device.

Fig. 9 is a symbol diagram of another example of carrying control information of a terminal device.

Fig. 10 is a diagram illustrating a downlink frame structure.

Fig. 11 is a diagram illustrating another downlink frame structure.

Fig. 12 is a schematic diagram of a schedule.

Fig. 13 is a symbol diagram of control information of a bearer terminal device received by a terminal device.

Fig. 14 is a symbol diagram of control information of a bearer terminal device received by another terminal device.

Fig. 15 is a diagram illustrating detection of a symbol carrying control information of a terminal device.

Fig. 16 is a schematic diagram of sequence transmission and detection.

Fig. 17 is a diagram of a sequence indication control channel and a data channel in a symbol carrying control information of a terminal device.

Fig. 18 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 19 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device 20 suitable for use in an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 20 is a schematic structural diagram of another communication device according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 21 is a schematic structural diagram of a network device 40 suitable for use in an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

The technical solution in the present application will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The technical scheme of the embodiment of the application can be applied to various communication systems, for example: global system for mobile communications (GSM) systems, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems, Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) systems, General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, LTE Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) systems, LTE Time Division Duplex (TDD), universal mobile telecommunications system (universal mobile telecommunications system, UMTS), Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) communication systems, future fifth generation (5G) or new radio NR systems, etc.

A terminal device in the embodiments of the present application may refer to a user equipment, an access terminal, a subscriber unit, a subscriber station, a mobile station, a relay station, a remote terminal, a mobile device, a user terminal, a wireless communication device, a user agent, or a user equipment. The terminal device may also be a cellular phone, a cordless phone, a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) phone, a Wireless Local Loop (WLL) station, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a handheld device with wireless communication function, a computing device or other processing device connected to a wireless modem, a vehicle-mounted device, a wearable device, a terminal device in a future 5G network or a terminal device in a future evolved Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN), and the like, which are not limited in this embodiment.

The network device in this embodiment may be a device for communicating with a terminal device, where the network device may be a Base Transceiver Station (BTS) in a global system for mobile communications (GSM) system or a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) system, may also be a base station (NodeB, NB) in a Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) system, may also be an evolved node b (eNB, or eNodeB) in an LTE system, may also be a wireless controller in a Cloud Radio Access Network (CRAN) scenario, or may be a relay station, an access point, a vehicle-mounted device, a wearable device, a network device in a future 5G network, or a network device in a future evolved PLMN network, and the like, and the present embodiment is not limited.

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

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

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a system 100 to which a communication method according to an embodiment of the present invention can be applied.

As shown in fig. 1, the system 100 includes a network device 102, and the network device 102 may include 1 antenna or multiple antennas. Such as

antennas

104, 106, 108, 110, 112, and 114. Additionally, network device 102 may additionally include: a transmitter chain and a receiver chain.

It will be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art that the transmitter chain and the receiver chain can each comprise a plurality of components associated with signal transmission and reception (e.g., processors, modulators, multiplexers, demodulators, demultiplexers, antennas, etc.).

Network device 102 may communicate with terminal devices, such as terminal device 116 and terminal device 122 shown in fig. 1. However, it is understood that network device 102 may communicate with any number of terminal devices similar to terminal device 116 or terminal device 122.

Terminal devices

116 and 122 may be various devices that communicate with network device 102, for example, terminal device 116 may be a cellular phone, a smart phone, a laptop computer, a handheld communication device, a handheld computing device, a satellite radio, a global positioning system, a PDA, and/or any other suitable device for communicating over wireless communication system 100.

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

antennas

112 and 114. Where

antennas

112 and 114 transmit information to terminal device 116 over a forward link (also called a downlink) 118 and receive information from terminal device 116 over a reverse link (also called an uplink) 120.

In addition, terminal device 122 is in communication with

antennas

104 and 106. Where

antennas

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

For example, in a Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) system. For example, forward link 118 may use a different frequency band than reverse link 120, and forward link 124 may use a different frequency band than reverse link 126.

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

Each antenna (or group of antennas consisting of multiple antennas) and/or area designed for communication is referred to as a sector of network device 102.

For example, antenna groups may be designed to communicate to terminal devices in a sector of the areas covered by network device 102. A network device may transmit signals to all terminal devices in its corresponding sector through single-antenna or multi-antenna transmit diversity. During communication by network device 102 with

terminal devices

116 and 122 over

forward links

118 and 124, respectively, the transmitting antennas of network device 102 may also utilize beamforming to improve signal-to-noise ratio of

forward links

118 and 124.

Moreover, mobile devices in neighboring cells can experience less interference when network device 102 utilizes beamforming to transmit to

terminal devices

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

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

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

It should be understood that fig. 1 is a simple schematic diagram, which is used to illustrate a scenario in which the communication method provided in the embodiment of the present application is applicable, and does not constitute any limitation to the present application.

In the following, to facilitate understanding of the communication method provided in the embodiments of the present application, several basic concepts are first introduced.

1. Waveform and time division scheduling:

in a New Radio (NR), an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) waveform is used for a Downlink (DL) in a frequency band of 52.6GHz or less; the Uplink (UL) employs two waveforms of OFDM and discrete fourier transform spread orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DFT spread OFDM, DFT-s-OFDM), where DFT refers to Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT).

The OFDM waveform has the advantages of flexibility in frequency division multiplexing, good compatibility with Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) technology, good link performance under a frequency selective channel and the like. However, the OFDM waveform has a large peak to average power ratio (PAPR), and needs to operate in the linear region of the power amplifier.

Wherein a frequency selective channel refers to a frequency selective channel.

In particular, a frequency selective channel refers to a multipath channel, and the inverse of its delay spread is not much larger than the desired signal bandwidth. The frequency response of such a channel is not flat in the frequency band used.

Specifically, the reason why the OFDM waveform needs to operate in the linear region of the power amplifier is as follows:

The OFDM symbol is formed by superimposing a plurality of independently modulated subcarrier signals, resulting in a large PAPR.

For high peak-to-average ratio signals, a transmitter needs to adopt a larger power amplifier backspacing value so that the signals are positioned in a linear working area of a power amplifier, and excessive signal distortion is avoided.

The DFT-s-OFDM waveform has good compatibility with OFDM waveforms, and the PAPR of the DFT-s-OFDM waveform is significantly lower than that of the OFDM waveform.

The DFT-s-OFDM waveform can achieve a greater output power than the OFDM waveform under the same power amplifier. The DFT-s-OFDM waveform can be used to improve the uplink coverage. However, the DFT-s-OFDM waveform performs worse than OFDM under frequency selective channels.

The design and selection principle of the waveform for uplink or downlink transmission in the NR, the frequency band below 52.6GHz is briefly introduced above.

The design and selection principle of the waveform for uplink or downlink transmission in the NR, the frequency band above 52.6GHz is briefly described below.

In the frequency band above 52.6GHz, the performance of the power amplifier is worse and the output power is lower. The necessity of selecting a low PAPR waveform is stronger. In this application, the frequency band above 52.6GHz can also be referred to as a high frequency band.

In addition, in the frequency band above 52.6GHz, the frequency selectivity of the channel is weaker due to the use of narrower beams. Resulting in a reduction in the performance advantage of the OFDM waveform.

In summary, the DFT-s-OFDM waveform may be more widely applied in the frequency band above 52.6 GHz.

In addition, the remaining single carrier waveforms may also be applied to frequency bands above 52.6 GHz.

For example, a unique word discrete Fourier transform spread orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (UW-DFT-s-OFDM) waveform, and a zero-tail discrete Fourier transform spread orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (zero tail-DFT-s-OFDM, ZT-DFT-s-OFDM) waveform.

It should be understood that in frequency bands above 52.6GHz, it is also possible to employ a single carrier waveform that includes time domain shaping.

For example, a Single carrier-QAM (SC-QAM) waveform, etc., wherein QAM refers to a Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM).

It should be understood that when the communication method provided in the embodiments of the present application is described below, the single-carrier waveforms involved may be one or more of the single-carrier waveforms described above, and may also be other types of single-carrier waveforms. This is not limited by the present application.

Further, to combat severe propagation losses, beam-based communication is typically employed between high-band network devices and terminal devices.

For the downlink, the network device can only serve multiple terminal devices located within the same beam coverage simultaneously. When the beam is narrow and the number of terminal devices is small, a single beam of the network device may only be able to serve one terminal device. When a terminal device monopolizes a beam, the network device should allocate the full bandwidth to the terminal device in order to avoid resource waste. However, since the terminal device occupies all frequency domain resources, the occupied time domain resources are generally limited. That is, the terminal device is adapted to employ time division scheduling.

2. Beam (beam):

a beam is a communication resource. The beam may be a wide beam, or a narrow beam, or other type of beam.

The technique of forming the beam may be a beamforming technique, or other technical means. The beamforming technique may be embodied as a digital beamforming technique, an analog beamforming technique, a hybrid digital/analog beamforming technique. Different beams may be considered different resources. The same information or different information may be transmitted through different beams.

Alternatively, a plurality of beams having the same or similar communication characteristics may be regarded as one beam. One or more antenna ports may be included in a beam for transmitting data channels, control channels, sounding signals, and the like.

For example, a transmit beam may refer to the distribution of signal strength in different directions in space after a signal is transmitted through an antenna.

A receive beam may refer to a distribution of reception that is emphasized or attenuated by the antenna array in spatially different directions for the wireless signal.

It is to be understood that the one or more antenna ports forming one beam may also be seen as one set of antenna ports. In the current NR protocol, beams can be represented by an antenna port quasi-co-location (QCL) relationship, where the QCL refers to a quasi-co-location (QCL).

Specifically, the two co-beamformed signals have a QCL relationship with respect to spatial Rx parameters (spatial Rx parameters). Namely, QCL-Type D: { Spatial Rx parameter } in the existing protocol.

The identification of the beam in the protocol may be the identification of various signals.

For example, the beam identification may be a resource Identification (ID) of a channel state indication-reference signal (CSI-RS); the beam identification may also be a time domain index of a synchronization signal/physical broadcast channel (SS/PBCH); the beam ID may also be a resource ID of a sounding signal (SRS), or the beam ID may be a resource ID of a tracking signal (TRS), etc.

The number of beams used for transmitting the PDCCH is smaller than the number of beams used for transmitting the PDSCH, and there is a problem in that the network device transmits control information to a plurality of terminal devices located on different beams.

In order to solve the above problem, the present application provides a communication method, where a network device can flexibly select a length of a symbol carrying control information of a terminal device, so as to implement more flexible beam switching.

Further, under the condition of high-frequency communication, the method can improve the number of beams for the network equipment to send the control information, so that the network equipment can schedule a plurality of terminal equipment located in different beams in a time division multiplexing mode.

It should be understood that the communication method provided by the embodiment of the present application is applicable to the wireless communication scenario shown in fig. 1. In particular, it is applicable to a high-band wireless communication system in which the high band is not limited to the above-described band of 52.6GHz or more, but may be all bands employing beam-based communication.

The communication method provided by the embodiment of the present application is described in detail below with reference to fig. 2 to 20.

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a communication method provided in an embodiment of the present application. The schematic includes four steps S110-S140, which are described in detail below.

S110, the network equipment determines the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal equipment.

In the embodiment of the present application, the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device refers to a symbol of a single carrier waveform such as OFDM, DFT-s-OFDM, SC-QAM, or the like used for carrying the control information of the terminal device. The symbol for carrying the control information of the terminal device is different from the symbol for carrying the PDCCH in the prior art, and the length of the symbol for carrying the control information of the terminal device in the present application can be flexibly selected.

The network device configures one or more control-resource sets (CORESET) for the terminal device. In the prior art, the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device is fixed within the one or more control resource sets. In this application, the length of a symbol carrying control information of a terminal device in one control resource or one control resource set is variable.

In this embodiment, the network device needs to determine the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device. The length of the symbol for bearing the control information of the terminal equipment is one of the lengths of K symbols to be detected, and K is a positive integer.

The length of the K symbols to be detected may be: preset, or network device configured.

For example, the network device randomly or fixedly configures the lengths of K symbols to be detected for the terminal device; or the network device configures the lengths of the K symbols to be detected for the terminal device based on the communication history between the network device and the terminal device. The embodiment of the present application does not limit how to configure the lengths of the K symbols to be detected for the terminal device.

Or the length of the K symbols to be detected is specified by the protocol.

In a communication system, different terminal devices may have different requirements for the length of a symbol carrying control information for the terminal device. Factors that affect the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device include: the signal-to-noise ratio of the terminal equipment and/or the information bit number of the terminal equipment and the like. For example, for a terminal device with a high signal-to-noise ratio, the length of a symbol required to carry control information of the terminal device is short; for a terminal device with a low signal-to-noise ratio, the length of a symbol required to carry control information of the terminal device is longer. If the number of information bits of Downlink Control Information (DCI) of the terminal device is small, the length of a symbol required to carry the DCI of the terminal device is short; if the DCI of the terminal device has a large number of information bits, the length of the symbol required to carry the control information of the terminal device is long.

Optionally, the network device may determine the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device according to a requirement of the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device.

That is, the network device determines a length of a symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device from the lengths of the symbols to be detected according to the number of the terminal devices served each time and the requirement of the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device.

How the network device determines the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device is described below with reference to fig. 3 to 5.

The network device serves X terminal devices and needs to send control information to the X terminal devices, respectively. And the network equipment respectively determines the length of the symbol for bearing the control information of the terminal equipment for the X terminal equipment according to the requirement of the length of the symbol for bearing the control information of the X terminal equipment, wherein X is an integer greater than 1.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of symbols of different lengths carrying control information of terminal devices.

As shown in fig. 3, includes: 8 symbols (symbol a-symbol H as shown in fig. 3), each of length L.

If X is 8. When the length requirements for the symbol carrying the terminal device control information are the same for 8 terminal devices served by the network device, the network device determines that the lengths of the symbols carrying the 8 terminal device control information are also the same, and are respectively L.

Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of another different length of symbols carrying control information for terminal devices.

As shown in fig. 4, includes: 4 symbols (symbol I-symbol L as shown in fig. 4). The length of the symbol I is L1, the length of the symbol J is L2, the length of the symbol K is L3, and the length of the symbol L is L4. And L1-2-L4-4-L2-4-L3.

If X is 4. The information bit number of the DCI of terminal apparatus a is greater than the information bit number of the DCI of terminal apparatus D; the DCI of terminal device D has a larger number of information bits than the DCI of terminal device B or C. The network device determines the lengths of the symbols carrying the control information of the terminal devices a, B, C, and D to be the lengths of the symbols I, J, K, and L shown in fig. 7, respectively.

Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a further different length of a symbol carrying control information for a terminal device.

As shown in fig. 5, includes: 4 symbols (e.g., M-P symbols as shown in fig. 5), it being understood that the symbols shown in fig. 5 are symbols carrying control information of the terminal device. The length of the symbol M is L5, the length of the symbol N is L6, the length of the symbol O is L7, and the length of the symbol P is L8. And, L5-3 × L7; l6 ═ L8 ═ 2 × L7. The difference between fig. 5 and fig. 4 is the symbol length.

If X is 4. The information bit number of the DCI of terminal apparatus a is greater than the information bit number of the DCI of terminal apparatus C; the DCI of terminal device B or D has a larger number of information bits than the DCI of terminal device C. The network device determines the lengths of the symbols carrying the control information of the terminal devices a, B, C and D, respectively, as the lengths of the symbols M, N, O and P shown in fig. 8, respectively.

The network device may configure the lengths (including the length L, the length L1, and the length L5) of the symbols of the control information of the terminal device a shown in fig. 3 to fig. 5 to the terminal device a as the length of the symbol to be detected by the terminal device a. It should be understood that fig. 3-5 are only examples and should not limit the scope of the present disclosure.

The length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device may be N times the length of the unit symbol, where N is a positive integer. The network device may determine a length of a symbol carrying control information of the terminal device based on the length of the unit symbol. The network equipment determines that the length of the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment is N times of the length of the unit symbol.

The length of the unit symbol will be briefly described with reference to fig. 6. Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of a unit symbol. The schematic includes a unit symbol of 0 to a unit symbol of Y-1. The CP shown in fig. 6 is a normal Cyclic Prefix (CP) of each unit symbol.

In fig. 6, the length of the time unit occupied by the control resource in the time domain includes: the length of P preset reference symbols. The P preset reference symbols comprise Y unit symbols, Y is an integer greater than 1, and P is a positive integer less than or equal to Y. Then, the length of the unit symbol is equal to the length of P preset reference symbols/Y.

The length of the preset reference symbol is defined by a protocol, or the network equipment informs the terminal equipment. In a possible implementation, the length of the preset reference symbol is equal to the length of a symbol (for example, the symbol for transmitting PDSCH described above) for transmitting data information to the terminal device by the network device.

If P is a positive integer less than Y. The length of the unit symbol is less than the length of the preset reference symbol. If P is equal to Y, the length of the unit symbol is less than the length of the preset reference symbol.

It should be understood that the values of P and Y may be configurable by the network device or agreed upon by a protocol, which is not limited in this application.

For example, a time unit occupied by the control resource in the time domain includes 8 unit symbols (as shown in fig. 3), and the length of the unit symbol is: l is a radical of an alcohol_min1/8 controls the length of the time unit that the resource occupies in the time domain.

The length of the K symbols to be detected can be expressed as a multiple of the length based on the unit symbol. For example,the length of the K symbols to be detected configured by the network device for the terminal device a may be a configuration array [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ]]The values in the array respectively indicate the length of the K symbols to be detected as the length L of the unit symbol _minA multiple of (c). Fig. 3 shows a case where the network device determines that the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device a is the length L of the unit symbol_min1 times of the total weight of the composition. I.e. selecting among the configuration arrays<1>. Fig. 4 shows a case where the network device determines that the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device a is the length L of the unit symbol_min4 times of the total weight of the product. I.e. selecting among the configuration arrays<4>. Fig. 5 shows a case where the network device determines that the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device a is the length L of the unit symbol_min3 times of the total weight of the product. I.e. selecting among the configuration arrays<3>。

The symbols carrying the control information of the terminal device may be of different types. For example, when the downlink waveform is a DFT-s-OFDM or OFDM waveform, the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device is a DFT-s-OFDM or OFDM symbol. Here, the DFT-s-OFDM waveform only includes a step of transform precoding (i.e., DFT) more than the OFDM waveform, and therefore, symbols carrying control information of the terminal device in both waveforms may also be collectively referred to as OFDM symbols. When the downlink adopts SC-QAM waveforms, the symbols carrying the control information of the terminal device may be SC-QAM symbols. When the downlink adopts other single-carrier waveforms, the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device may be other types of symbols.

The SC-QAM symbols may include K QAM modulation symbols, K being a positive integer. The SC-QAM symbols may also include bits at the head or tail that may contain a CP or guard interval (GP). As shown in fig. 7, fig. 7 is a schematic diagram of an SC-QAM symbol. The QAM modulation in the embodiment of the present application includes binary phase shift keying (pi/2-BPSK), Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK), 16QAM, 64QAM, or 256 QAM. The QAM modulation of this embodiment may further include other modulation schemes such as non-uniform constellation modulation.

When the communication waveform is DFT-s-OFDM, symbols carrying control information of the terminal device may be defined before DFT. That is, the network device multiplexes a plurality of unit symbols shown in fig. 5 in the time domain, performs DFT, sub-carrier mapping, and performs Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) and CP addition to generate a DFT-s-OFDM symbol.

When the network equipment sends the DFT-s-OFDM symbol, the beam switching can be carried out among the unit symbols, and the purpose that each symbol carrying the control information of the terminal equipment adopts independent beams to send is achieved.

In fig. 5, the CP is included before each unit symbol, but in practice, GP, UW, or the like may be inserted between unit symbols. As shown in fig. 8, when the network device employs a single-carrier waveform and a plurality of unit symbols are allocated to one terminal device, the remaining CPs except for the first CP may be omitted. Therefore, the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device may be regarded as one independent symbol although it may be constituted by a plurality of unit symbols.

In another implementation, the CP of each unit symbol is not omitted, and the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device is formed by a plurality of independent unit symbols, as shown in fig. 9.

And S120, the network equipment sends the control information to the terminal equipment.

Specifically, the network device sends the control information to the terminal device through a symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device.

One or more symbols carrying control information of the terminal device may be used to carry one control information. For example, X symbols carrying control information of a terminal device are used to carry Q control information, where Q is a positive integer less than or equal to X. That is, one symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device may carry one control information, or a plurality of symbols carrying the control information of the terminal device may carry one control information.

The network device may transmit symbols carrying control information for the terminal device using different beams. And the network equipment adopts M first beams to send the X symbols carrying the control information of the terminal equipment. Wherein M is a positive integer less than or equal to X. That is, each symbol carrying control information of the terminal device may be transmitted by one beam, and one beam may also transmit a plurality of symbols carrying control information of the terminal device. The set of beams in which symbols carrying control information for the terminal device are transmitted may be determined based on the beam in which the terminal device to be scheduled by the network device is located. The method can cover the terminal equipment to be scheduled without influencing the efficiency of the terminal equipment. In the embodiment of the application, the network device can flexibly select the number of the beams for sending the symbols carrying the control information of the terminal device.

For example, in fig. 3-5, the network device may transmit multiple beams within a time unit occupied by the control resource in the time domain in order to schedule a subsequent plurality of terminal devices located on different beams. The symbols a-H are included in fig. 3. Terminal device a-terminal device H are located in different beams. The network device may transmit symbols a-H through first beam 0-first beam 8, respectively. Fig. 4 includes symbol I-symbol L. Terminal device a-terminal device H are located in different beams. The network device may transmit symbols I-L through first beam 0-first beam 3, respectively. Fig. 5 includes symbol M-symbol P. Terminal device a and terminal device B are located on the same beam, and terminal device C and terminal device D are located on the same beam. The network device may transmit symbol M and symbol N using a first beam 0, and transmit symbol O and symbol P using a first beam 1, each beam transmitting two symbols.

The network device may flexibly use multiple beams to transmit multiple symbols carrying control information of the terminal device according to the beam in which the terminal device is located. That is, it is possible to avoid that one wide beam transmits all control information in the related art, resulting in a reduction in flexibility in selecting a terminal device.

The control information may have the following functions: downlink data channel scheduling, uplink data channel scheduling, power control commands, paging information transmission and the like. The invention does not limit the function of the control information. However, the following description will take an example in which control information is used for scheduling a downlink data channel. The Q control information carried by the X symbols carrying the control information of the terminal device is used to schedule Q data channels, where the Q data channels are transmitted by Y1 second beams, and the scheduled terminal devices can receive the Y1 second beams and M first beams, and Y1 is a positive integer smaller than or equal to X. In some implementations, the first beam is the same as the second beam.

The control resource for sending the control information and the data resource corresponding to each data channel are located in a downlink frame structure. The following describes the downlink frame structure in the embodiment of the present application in detail with reference to fig. 10 and 11.

Fig. 10 is a diagram illustrating a downlink frame structure.

The downlink frame structure includes data resources and control resources. As shown in fig. 10, the downlink frame includes: data resource 0-data resource 5). The control resource in the frame structure is a time-frequency resource used for transmitting control information, for example, a time-frequency resource of a PDCCH. The data resources are time-frequency resources for data channel transmission, such as time-frequency resources of PDSCH. The network device sends scheduling or indication information at the control resource instructing the terminal device to receive the subsequent one or more data resources.

The time-frequency resource may include one or more OFDM symbols, one or more DFT-S-OFDM symbols, or several groups of modulation symbols (e.g., QAM symbols).

The control resources and the data resources may be located in the same time unit. The control resources and the data resources may also be located in different time units. For example, the control resource is located in slot 1, the data resource is located in slot 2, and slot 1 and slot 2 are different slots.

The control resources may be located at the head of the frame structure (e.g., slot, symbol, or time unit, etc.) or at the rest of the frame structure. As shown in fig. 11, the control resource may be located in other locations of the frame structure than the frame structure header.

The plurality of data resources may transmit data to different terminal devices in order for the network device to serve the plurality of different terminal devices. In a high-band wireless communication system, a plurality of data channels are transmitted through different beams, and thus a network device can perform beam switching between data resources.

The scheduling of multiple data channels by multiple control information is described below in conjunction with fig. 12.

Fig. 12 is a schematic diagram of a schedule.

In fig. 12, the time unit occupied by the control resource in the time domain includes symbols 0 to 5, and the control information carried in the symbols 0 to 5 is respectively used for scheduling data channels 0 to 5. The symbol in fig. 12 is a symbol carrying control information of the terminal device.

Fig. 12 is an example of scheduling in which all symbols carrying control information of a terminal device are used for a data channel. The symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device may also be used to carry the remaining downlink control information, for example, to carry DCI for uplink scheduling.

It will be appreciated that to reduce complexity, the symbols carrying the control information for the terminal device may have a narrower bandwidth than the data channel. Since the narrower the bandwidth the lower the complexity.

The data channels of the plurality of terminal devices scheduled by the network device may be transmitted through different beams.

For example, data channels 0-5 of terminal device 0-5 scheduled by the network device in fig. 12 are transmitted through second beam 0-second beam 5, respectively.

In order for the terminal device to successfully demodulate the received symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device, the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device may adopt one of the following two design modes:

the first mode is as follows: a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) is carried in a symbol carrying control information of the terminal device, and the DMRS is used to demodulate the symbol carrying control information of the terminal device. And a second mode: the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal equipment adopts differential modulation, and the terminal equipment demodulates the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal equipment based on the modulation mode of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal equipment.

In order that the terminal device can correctly receive the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal device, the network device configures at least one of the following information for the terminal device:

(1) beam information of a symbol carrying control information of a terminal device;

(2) time domain information of a symbol carrying control information of the terminal device.

The beam information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device includes at least one of the following information:

(1) the DMRS in the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment and a preset reference signal have a spatial quasi co-location QCL relationship;

(2) the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device has a spatial quasi co-located QCL relationship with the preset reference signal.

The terminal device may receive a symbol carrying control information of the terminal device through a beam receiving the preset reference signal.

The predetermined reference signal may be a Synchronization Signal Block (SSB) or a channel state information-reference signal (CSI-RS). That is, the terminal device may receive symbols carrying control information of the terminal device through a beam receiving the SSB or CSI-RS.

The time domain information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device includes at least one of the following information:

(1) The method comprises the steps of carrying out time domain position of a symbol of control information of terminal equipment and detecting the period and offset of the symbol of the control information of the terminal equipment;

(2) the method comprises the steps of carrying out time domain starting position of a symbol of control information of terminal equipment and detecting the period and offset of the symbol of the control information of the terminal equipment.

The time domain starting position of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device refers to the time domain starting position of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device in one control resource.

The symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment may have a plurality of candidate time domain positions, and the terminal equipment judges the actual time domain position of the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment through blind detection; or, the terminal device determines the actual time domain position of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device according to a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) check result obtained by multiple detections.

Besides configuring the information related to the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device for the terminal device, the network device may also configure other information for the terminal device.

For example, the DMRS sequence information, the power difference between the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device and the remaining reference signals, the bandwidth information, the DCI format to be detected, the power difference between the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device and the remaining reference signals, the bandwidth of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device, the frequency domain position of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device, and the like.

Optionally, the network device sends length information of K symbols to be detected to the terminal device, where the length information of the K symbols to be detected includes information of a length of a symbol that carries control information of the terminal device. And the terminal equipment determines the actual length of the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment according to the detection result of the DCI carried by the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment. For example, a CRC check for detecting DCI, or Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) or the like.

Illustratively, the terminal device determines the actual length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device according to the CRC result of the DCI obtained through multiple detections.

Alternatively, the length information of the symbol to be detected may be any one of the following two ways.

The method I comprises the following steps: and the length information of the symbol to be detected is the actual length of the symbol to be detected.

For example, the length information of the symbol to be detected is the duration of the symbol to be detected.

The second method comprises the following steps: the length information of the symbol to be detected is a multiple of the basic sampling length.

For example, the length information of the symbol to be detected is a numerical value R, and R is a positive integer. The actual length of the symbol to be detected is R Tc, Tc is a basic sampling length, and the basic sampling length value Tc is known by the terminal.

The third method comprises the following steps: the length information of the symbol to be detected is a multiple of the length of the unit symbol.

For example, the length information of the K symbols to be detected is K values N. Assuming that K is 4, and the lengths corresponding to the 4 symbols to be detected are 1 times the length of the unit symbol, 2 times the length of the unit symbol, 4 times the length of the unit symbol, and 8 times the length of the unit symbol, the values N are 1, 2, 4, and 8, respectively.

With reference to fig. 13 and 14, a possible manner of carrying the length information of the symbol of the control information of the terminal device is described.

When the requirement of the terminal device for the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device is the length of 2 unit symbols, the length information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device can have the following two different implementation manners:

the first method is as follows: the length information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device indicates that the terminal device receives 2 unit symbols. As shown in fig. 13.

Fig. 13 is a symbol diagram of control information of a bearer terminal device received by a terminal device. The schematic includes 2 unit symbols. The CP shown in fig. 13 is a CP per unit symbol.

In fig. 13, the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device is directly defined by the unit symbol, which has an advantage of simple implementation. Each unit symbol may carry DCI information or DMRS, etc.

The second method comprises the following steps: the length information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device indicates that the terminal device receives 1 symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device, but the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device is the length of 2 unit symbols. As shown in fig. 14.

Fig. 14 is a symbol diagram of control information of a bearer terminal device received by another terminal device. The diagram includes 1 symbol carrying control information of the terminal device. The CP shown in fig. 14 is a CP of the 1 symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device. The symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device may carry DCI information or DMRS, etc.

Fig. 14 omits the CP of the second unit symbol compared to that shown in fig. 13, reducing overhead.

It should be understood that the above-mentioned first and second modes are only exemplary forms of length information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device, and other simple variations of the above-mentioned first or second modes are also within the scope of the present application.

In one possible implementation, the time domain position of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device indicates the position of the control channel and/or the data channel of the terminal device.

For example, the time domain position of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device may be represented by a sequence in the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device, and the sequence may occupy 1 bit in the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device.

The sequence may use pi/2-BPSK modulation to reduce PAPR, or use the remaining low PAPR sequences, such as ZC sequences.

One important difference between the symbol containing the control information of the terminal equipment in the sequence and the symbol containing the control information of the terminal equipment in the sequence is as follows: time domain information of a symbol carrying control information of the terminal device. The network device does not need to configure the terminal device with a specific time domain position of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device in the control resource, wherein the symbol comprises a sequence.

And S130, the terminal equipment receives the control information.

Specifically, the terminal device receives the control information sent by the network device through a symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device.

And S140, the terminal equipment analyzes the control information.

When receiving the control information, the terminal equipment firstly analyzes the control information, and correspondingly processes the data information after the analysis is finished. Therefore, when the data information is received, the analysis of the control information may not be completed, the terminal device may cache the received data information in the buffer, and process the received data information after the analysis of the control information.

And the terminal equipment analyzes the control information according to the configuration information. The configuration information includes the beam information of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device, the symbol time domain information carrying the control information of the terminal device, or the length information of K symbols to be detected. And will not be described in detail herein.

After receiving the configuration information, the terminal device may perform symbol detection for carrying control information of the terminal device as shown in fig. 15.

Fig. 15 is a diagram illustrating a method of detecting a symbol carrying control information of a terminal device.

First, the terminal device determines a receiving beam for receiving a symbol carrying control information of the terminal device according to the configuration information.

Secondly, the terminal device detects the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device according to the configuration information. For example, detecting a symbol carrying control information of the terminal device for the terminal device shown in fig. 15 is to detect one unit symbol when the symbol carrying control information of the terminal device includes a sequence, the terminal device may determine a specific time domain position of the symbol carrying control information of the terminal device in the control resource by detecting the sequence in the symbol carrying control information of the terminal device.

How the terminal device detects the sequence in the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device is explained in connection with fig. 16.

Fig. 16 is a schematic diagram of sequence transmission and detection.

Suppose that the network device schedules six terminal devices, terminal device 0 to terminal device 5.

First, the network devices are terminal device 0 to terminal device 5, and respectively determine symbol 0 bearing control information of the terminal device to symbol 5 bearing control information of the terminal device.

Secondly, the network device carries the specific time domain position of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device in the control resource in a sequence form in the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device. That is, symbol 0 carrying control information of the terminal device to symbol 5 carrying control information of the terminal device include sequence 0 to sequence 5, respectively.

Finally, the network device specifies the terminal device to receive the beam carrying the symbol of the control information of the terminal device and the sequence to be detected through the configuration information.

In fig. 16 the network device specifies the terminal device 3 to detect the sequence 3 by means of the configuration information.

Since the time domain position of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device may be represented by a sequence in the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device, and the time domain position of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device indicates the position of the control channel and/or the data channel of the terminal device. The sequence in the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device may also represent the position of the control channel and/or the data channel of the terminal device.

With reference to fig. 17, it is explained how the sequence in the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device represents the position of the control channel and/or data channel of the terminal device.

Fig. 17 is a diagram in which a sequence in a symbol carrying control information of a terminal device indicates positions of a control channel and a data channel.

The sequences 0-5 are used to indicate the location of the control channel 0, data channel 0-control channel 5, data channel 5, respectively.

The sequence is 1 bit information, and a separate sequence cannot indicate detailed scheduling parameters, so a control channel needs to be transmitted.

Specifically, the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device may include only the sequence; alternatively, the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device may include other information besides the sequence, such as DCI information bits.

The data channel may be the PDSCH described above, and the control channel may be the PDCCH described above.

It should be understood that the sequences in fig. 16 and 17 can also be directly interpreted as symbols carrying control information of the terminal device carrying the sequences, since the sequences are information in the symbols carrying the control information of the terminal device.

The time domain position of the sequence and the time domain position of the indicated control channel and/or data channel have a corresponding relationship, and the specific corresponding relationship is determined according to what corresponding rule to be given by a protocol or configured by a network device, which is not limited in the embodiment of the present application. For example, the terminal device receives the sequence and the control channel and/or data channel indicated by the sequence using the same beam, that is, the sequence and the control channel and/or data channel indicated by the sequence have a QCL relationship with respect to the spatial reception parameter.

The communication method proposed in the present application is described in detail above with reference to fig. 2 to 17. The following describes a communication apparatus proposed in the present application.

Referring to fig. 18, fig. 18 is a schematic diagram of the communication device 10 proposed in the present application. As shown in fig. 18, the apparatus 10 includes a receiving unit 110 and a processing unit 120.

A receiving unit 110, configured to receive control information sent by a network device through a symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device;

a processing unit 120, configured to parse the control information.

The apparatus 10 corresponds exactly to the terminal device in the method embodiment, and the corresponding units of the apparatus 10 are configured to perform the corresponding steps performed by the terminal device in the method embodiments shown in fig. 2-17.

Wherein the receiving unit 110 in the device 10 performs the steps received in the method embodiment. For example, step 130 of fig. 2 of receiving control information from a network device is performed. The processing unit 120 performs the steps implemented or processed internally by the terminal device in the method embodiments. For example, step 140 of parsing the control information in fig. 2 is performed.

Optionally, the apparatus 10 may further include a sending unit 130 for sending information to other devices. The receiving unit 110 and the transmitting unit 130 may constitute a transceiving unit, and have both receiving and transmitting functions. Wherein the processing unit 120 may be a processor. The receiving unit 110 may be a receiver. The transmitting unit 130 may be a transmitter. The receiver and transmitter may be integrated together to form a transceiver.

Referring to fig. 19, fig. 19 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device 20 suitable for use in the embodiments of the present application. The terminal device 20 is applicable to the system shown in fig. 1. For convenience of explanation, fig. 19 shows only main components of the terminal device. As shown in fig. 19, the terminal device 20 includes a processor, a memory, a control circuit, an antenna, and an input-output means. The processor is used for controlling the antenna and the input and output device to send and receive signals, the memory is used for storing a computer program, and the processor is used for calling and running the computer program from the memory to execute corresponding procedures and/or operations executed by the terminal equipment in the communication method provided by the application. And will not be described in detail herein.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that fig. 19 shows only one memory and processor for ease of illustration. In an actual terminal device, there may be multiple processors and memories. The memory may also be referred to as a storage medium or a storage device, and the like, which is not limited in this application.

Referring to fig. 20, fig. 20 is a schematic diagram of a communication device 30 proposed in the present application. As shown in fig. 20, the apparatus 30 includes a transmitting unit 310 and a processing unit 320.

A processing unit 320, configured to determine a length of a symbol carrying control information of a terminal device, where the length of the symbol carrying control information of the terminal device is one of lengths of K symbols to be detected, and K is a positive integer;

A sending unit 310, configured to send the control information to the terminal device through the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device.

The apparatus 30 corresponds exactly to the network device in the method embodiment, and the corresponding units of the apparatus 30 are configured to perform the corresponding steps performed by the network device in the method embodiments shown in fig. 2-17.

Wherein, the sending unit 310 in the apparatus 30 executes the steps received by the network device in the method embodiment. For example, step 120 of sending control information to the terminal device in fig. 2 is performed. The processing unit 120 performs the steps implemented or processed internally by the network device in the method embodiments. For example, step 110 of fig. 2 of determining the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device is performed.

Optionally, the apparatus 30 may further include a receiving unit 330, configured to receive information sent by other devices. The receiving unit 330 and the transmitting unit 310 may constitute a transceiving unit, and have both receiving and transmitting functions. Wherein the processing unit 320 may be a processor. The transmitting unit 310 may be a receiver. The receiving unit 330 may be a transmitter. The receiver and transmitter may be integrated together to form a transceiver.

Referring to fig. 21, fig. 21 is a schematic structural diagram of a network device 40 suitable for the embodiment of the present application, and may be used to implement the functions of the network device in the communication method described above. Such as a schematic diagram of the structure of the base station. As shown in fig. 21, the network device may be applied to the system shown in fig. 1.

The network device 40 may include one or more radio frequency units, such as a Remote Radio Unit (RRU) 401 and one or more Base Band Units (BBUs). The baseband unit may also be referred to as a Digital Unit (DU) 402. The RRU 401 may be referred to as a transceiver unit, and corresponds to the sending unit 310 in fig. 20. Optionally, the transceiver unit 401 may also be referred to as a transceiver, a transceiver circuit, a transceiver, or the like, and may include at least one antenna 4011 and a radio frequency unit 4012. Alternatively, the transceiver 401 may include a receiving unit and a transmitting unit, where the receiving unit may correspond to a receiver (or receiver or receiving circuit), and the transmitting unit may correspond to a transmitter (or transmitter or transmitting circuit). The RRU 401 is mainly used for receiving and transmitting radio frequency signals and converting the radio frequency signals and baseband signals, for example, for sending the control information described in the above embodiments to a terminal device. The BBU 402 is mainly used for performing baseband processing, controlling a base station, and the like. The RRU 401 and the BBU 402 may be physically disposed together or may be physically disposed separately, that is, distributed base stations.

The BBU 402 is a control center of a network device, and may also be referred to as a processing unit, and may correspond to the processing unit 320 in fig. 20, and is mainly used for completing baseband processing functions, such as channel coding, multiplexing, modulating, spreading, and the like. For example, the BBU (processing unit) 402 can be used to control the network device 40 to execute the operation flow related to the network device in the above-described method embodiment, for example, to determine the length of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device.

In an example, the BBU 402 may be formed by one or more boards, and the boards may support a radio access network of a single access system (e.g., an LTE system or a 5G system) together, or may support radio access networks of different access systems respectively. The BBU 402 also includes a memory 4021 and a processor 4022. The memory 4021 is used to store necessary instructions and data. For example, the memory 4021 stores the codebook and the like in the above-described embodiments. The processor 4022 is configured to control the base station to perform necessary actions, for example, to control the base station to execute the operation flow related to the network device in the above method embodiment. The memory 4021 and the processor 4022 may serve one or more boards. That is, the memory and processor may be provided separately on each board. Multiple boards may share the same memory and processor. In addition, each single board can be provided with necessary circuits.

It should be understood that the network device 40 shown in fig. 21 is capable of implementing the network device functions involved in the method embodiments of fig. 2-17. The operations and/or functions of the units in the network device 40 are respectively for implementing the corresponding processes executed by the network device in the method embodiments of the present application. To avoid repetition, detailed description is appropriately omitted here. The structure of the network device illustrated in fig. 21 is only one possible form, and should not limit the embodiments of the present application in any way. This application does not exclude the possibility of other forms of network device architecture that may appear in the future.

The embodiment of the present application further provides a communication system, which includes the foregoing network device and one or more terminal devices.

The present application also provides a computer-readable storage medium having stored therein instructions, which when executed on a computer, cause the computer to perform the steps performed by the network device in the methods described above as shown in fig. 2-17.

The present application also provides a computer-readable storage medium, which stores instructions that, when executed on a computer, cause the computer to perform the steps performed by the terminal device in the methods shown in fig. 2 to 17.

The present application also provides a computer program product containing instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform the steps performed by the network device in the method as shown in fig. 2-17.

The present application also provides a computer program product comprising instructions for causing a computer to perform the steps performed by the terminal device in the methods shown in fig. 2-17, when the computer program product runs on the computer.

The application also provides a chip comprising a processor. The processor is configured to read and execute the computer program stored in the memory to perform corresponding operations and/or procedures executed by the terminal device in the communication method provided by the present application. Optionally, the chip further comprises a memory, the memory is connected with the processor through a circuit or a wire, and the processor is used for reading and executing the computer program in the memory. Further optionally, the chip further comprises a communication interface, and the processor is connected to the communication interface. The communication interface is used for receiving data and/or information needing to be processed, and the processor acquires the data and/or information from the communication interface and processes the data and/or information. The communication interface may be an input output interface.

The application also provides a chip comprising a processor. The processor is configured to call and execute the computer program stored in the memory to perform corresponding operations and/or procedures performed by the network device in the communication method provided by the present application. Optionally, the chip further comprises a memory, the memory is connected with the processor through a circuit or a wire, and the processor is used for reading and executing the computer program in the memory. Further optionally, the chip further comprises a communication interface, and the processor is connected to the communication interface. The communication interface is used for receiving data and/or information needing to be processed, and the processor acquires the data and/or information from the communication interface and processes the data and/or information. The communication interface may be an input output interface.

In the above embodiments, the processor may be a Central Processing Unit (CPU), a microprocessor, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or one or more integrated circuits for controlling the execution of programs according to the present disclosure. For example, the processor may be a digital signal processor device, a microprocessor device, an analog-to-digital converter, a digital-to-analog converter, or the like. The processor may distribute the functions of control and signal processing of the terminal device or the network device among these devices according to their respective functions. Further, the processor may have the functionality to operate one or more software programs, which may be stored in the memory. The functions of the processor can be realized by hardware, and can also be realized by hardware executing corresponding software. The hardware or software includes one or more modules corresponding to the above-described functions.

The memory may be a read-only memory (ROM), other types of static storage devices that may store static information and instructions, a Random Access Memory (RAM), or other types of dynamic storage devices that may store information and instructions, an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), a compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM) or other optical disc storage, optical disc storage (including compact disc, laser disc, optical disc, digital versatile disc, blu-ray disc, etc.), magnetic disk storage media or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium that can be used to carry or store desired program code in the form of instructions or data structures and that can be accessed by a computer, etc.

Alternatively, the memory and the storage involved in the above embodiments may be physically separate units, or the memory and the processor may be integrated together.

In the embodiments of the present application, "at least one" means one or more, and "a plurality" means two or more. "and/or" describes the association relationship of the associated objects, and means that there may be three relationships, for example, a and/or B, and may mean that a exists alone, a and B exist simultaneously, and B exists alone. Wherein A and B can be singular or plural. The character "/" generally indicates that the former and latter associated objects are in an "or" relationship. "at least one of the following" and similar expressions refer to any combination of these items, including any combination of singular or plural items. For example, at least one of a, b, and c may represent: a, b, c, a-b, a-c, b-c, or a-b-c, wherein a, b, c may be single or multiple.

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

It can be clearly understood by those skilled in the art that, for convenience and simplicity of description, the specific working processes of the above-described systems, apparatuses and units may refer to the corresponding processes in the foregoing method embodiments, and are not described herein again.

In the several embodiments provided in the present application, the disclosed system, apparatus and method may be implemented in other ways. For example, the above-described apparatus embodiments are merely illustrative, and for example, the division of the unit is only a logical division, and there may be other divisions when the actual implementation is performed. For example, various elements or components may be combined or may be integrated in another system or some features may be omitted, or not implemented. In addition, the shown or discussed mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection may be an indirect coupling or communication connection through some interfaces, devices or units, and may be in an electrical, mechanical or other form.

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

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

The functions may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium if they are implemented in the form of software functional units and sold or used as separate products. Based on such understanding, the technical solution of the present application or portions thereof that substantially contribute to the prior art may be embodied in the form of a software product stored in a storage medium and including instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device) to execute all or part of the steps of the method according to the embodiments of the present application. And the aforementioned storage medium includes: various media capable of storing program codes, such as a usb disk, a removable hard disk, a read-only memory (ROM), a Random Access Memory (RAM), a magnetic disk, or an optical disk.

The above description is only for the specific embodiments of the present application, and any person skilled in the art can easily conceive of the changes or substitutions within the technical scope of the present disclosure, and all the changes or substitutions should be covered by the protection scope of the present application. The protection scope of the present application shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A method of communication, comprising:

the method comprises the steps that network equipment determines the length of a symbol for bearing control information of terminal equipment, wherein the length of the symbol for bearing the control information of the terminal equipment is one of the lengths of K symbols to be detected, and K is a positive integer; the network equipment sends the control information to the terminal equipment through the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment;

and the network equipment sends the length information of the K symbols to be detected to the terminal equipment.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein each of the length information of the K symbols to be detected comprises:

and a numerical value N, wherein the numerical value N represents that the length of the symbol to be detected is N times of the length of the unit symbol, and N is a positive integer.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the length of the unit symbol is a preset value, or further comprising:

And the network equipment sends the length information of the unit symbol to the terminal equipment.

4. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 3,

the time domain position of the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device indicates the position of the control channel and/or the data channel of the terminal device.

5. A method of communication, comprising:

the method comprises the steps that terminal equipment receives control information sent by network equipment through a symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment, wherein the length of the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment is one of the lengths of K symbols to be detected, and K is a positive integer;

the terminal equipment receives the length information of the K symbols to be detected sent by the network equipment; and the terminal equipment analyzes the control information.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein each of the length information of the K symbols to be detected comprises:

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the length of the unit symbol is a preset value, or further comprising:

And the terminal equipment receives the length information of the unit symbol sent by the network equipment.

8. The method according to any one of claims 5 to 7,

9. A communications apparatus, comprising:

the processing unit is used for determining the length of a symbol bearing control information of terminal equipment, wherein the length of the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment is one of the lengths of K symbols to be detected, and K is a positive integer; a sending unit, configured to send the control information to the terminal device through the symbol carrying the control information of the terminal device;

the sending unit is further configured to send length information of the K symbols to be detected to the terminal device.

10. The apparatus according to claim 9, wherein each of the length information of the K symbols to be detected comprises:

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the length of the unit symbol is a preset value, or wherein the sending unit is further configured to send length information of the unit symbol to the terminal device.

12. The apparatus according to any one of claims 9-11,

13. A communications apparatus, comprising:

a receiving unit, configured to receive control information sent by a network device through a symbol carrying the control information of a terminal device,

the symbol bearing the control information of the terminal equipment is one of the lengths of K symbols to be detected, and K is a positive integer;

the receiving unit is further configured to receive length information of the K symbols to be detected sent by the network device;

and the processing unit is used for analyzing the control information.

14. The apparatus according to claim 13, wherein each of the length information of the K symbols to be detected comprises:

15. The apparatus according to claim 14, wherein the length of the unit symbol is a preset value, or the receiving unit is further configured to receive length information of the unit symbol sent by the network device.

16. The apparatus of any one of claims 13-15,

17. A communication device, comprising:

a memory for storing a computer program;

a processor for executing a computer program stored in the memory to cause the apparatus to perform the communication method of any one of claims 1 to 8.

18. A computer-readable storage medium comprising a computer program which, when run on a computer, causes the computer to perform the communication method of any one of claims 1 to 8.