WO2024102301A1 - Ue behavior and conditions with reduced prs measurement samples - Google Patents

Abstract

Provided herein is UE behavior and conditions with reduced PRS measurement samples. The disclosure provides an apparatus, comprising: memory; and processor circuitry coupled with the memory, wherein the processor circuitry is to: determine a signal to noise and interference ratio (SINR) associated with a positioning reference signal (PRS); and perform a positioning measurement with a reduced number of samples at least partially based on the SINR, wherein a side condition of SINR for the positioning measurement is 0dB, and wherein the memory is to store the side condition. Other embodiments are also disclosed and claimed.

Description

UE BEHAVIOR AND CONDITIONS WITH REDUCED PRS MEASUREMENT SAMPEES

Priority Claim

[1] This application is based on and claims priority to US provisional application No. 63/423,370 filed on November 7, 2022, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Technical Field

[2] Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to wireless communications, and in particular to user equipment (UE) behavior and conditions with reduced positioning reference signal (PRS) measurement samples.

Background Art

[3] Mobile communication has evolved significantly from early voice systems to today’s highly sophisticated integrated communication platform. The next generation wireless communication system, the fifth generation (5G), or new radio (NR) will provide access to information and sharing of data anywhere, anytime by various terminals and applications. NR is expected to be a unified network/system that targets to meet vastly different and sometime conflicting performance dimensions and services. Such diverse multi-dimensional requirements are driven by different services and applications. In general, NR may evolve based on the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3 GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) -Advanced with additional potential new Radio Access Technologies (RATs) to enrich people’s lives with better, simple and seamless wireless connectivity solutions. NR may enable everything connected by wireless and deliver fast, rich contents and services.

Brief Description of the Drawings [4] Embodiments of the disclosure will be illustrated, by way of example and not limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which like reference numerals refer to similar elements.

[5] Fig. 1 illustrates an example architecture of a system in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.

[6] Fig. 2 illustrates a flowchart of a method for positioning measurement in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.

[7] Fig. 3 illustrates a simulation diagram for performance of PRS-RSRP with -3dB SINR side condition and OdB SINR side condition in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.

[8] Fig. 4 illustrates a simulation diagram for performance of UE Rx-Tx time difference with -3dB SINR side condition and OdB SINR side condition in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.

[9] Fig. 5 illustrates a simulation diagram for performance of UE Rx-Tx time difference with -3dB SINR side condition and -6dB SINR side condition in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.

[10] Fig. 6 schematically illustrates a wireless network in accordance with various embodiments of the disclosure.

[11] Fig. 7 illustrates example components of a device in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.

[12] Fig. 8 illustrates an example of infrastructure equipment in accordance with various embodiments.

[13] Fig. 9 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein.

[14] Fig. 10 illustrates a network in accordance with various embodiments of the disclosure. Detailed Description of Embodiments

[15] Various aspects of the illustrative embodiments will be described using terms commonly employed by those skilled in the art to convey the substance of the disclosure to others skilled in the art. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that many alternate embodiments may be practiced using portions of the described aspects. For purposes of explanation, specific numbers, materials, and configurations are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the illustrative embodiments. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that alternate embodiments may be practiced without the specific details. In other instances, well known features may have been omitted or simplified in order to avoid obscuring the illustrative embodiments.

[16] Further, various operations will be described as multiple discrete operations, in turn, in a manner that is most helpful in understanding the illustrative embodiments; however, the order of description should not be construed as to imply that these operations are necessarily order dependent. In particular, these operations need not be performed in the order of presentation.

[17] The phrases “in an embodiment” “in one embodiment” and “in some embodiments” are used repeatedly herein. The phrase generally does not refer to the same embodiment; however, it may. The terms “comprising,” “having,” and “including” are synonymous, unless the context dictates otherwise. The phrases “A or B” and “A/B” mean “(A), (B), or (A and B).”

[18] Fig. 1 illustrates an example architecture of a system 100 in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. The following description is provided for an example system 100 that operates in conjunction with the as Long Term Evolution (LTE) system standards and the 5G or New Radio (NR) system standards as provided by 3 GPP technical specifications (TS). However, the example embodiments are not limited in this regard and the described embodiments may apply to other networks that benefit from the principles described herein, such as future 3 GPP systems (e.g., Sixth Generation (6G)) systems, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.16 protocols (e.g., Wireless metropolitan area networks (MAN), Worldwide Interoperability for Micro wave Access (WiMAX), etc.), or the like.

[19] As shown by Figure 1, the system 100 may include UE 101a and UE 101b (collectively referred to as “UEs 101” or “UE 101”). As used herein, the term “user equipment” or “UE” may refer to a device with radio communication capabilities and may describe a remote user of network resources in a communications network. The term “user equipment” or “UE” may be considered synonymous to, and may be referred to as client, mobile, mobile device, mobile terminal, user terminal, mobile unit, mobile station, mobile user, subscriber, user, remote station, access agent, user agent, receiver, radio equipment, reconfigurable radio equipment, reconfigurable mobile device, etc. Furthermore, the term “user equipment” or “UE” may include any type of wireless/wired device or any computing device including a wireless communications interface. In this example, UEs 101 are illustrated as smartphones (e.g., handheld touchscreen mobile computing devices connectable to one or more cellular networks), but may also comprise any mobile or non-mobile computing device, such as consumer electronics devices, cellular phones, smartphones, feature phones, tablet computers, wearable computer devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), pagers, wireless handsets, desktop computers, laptop computers, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), in-car entertainment (ICE) devices, an Instrument Cluster (IC), head-up display (HUD) devices, onboard diagnostic (OBD) devices, dashtop mobile equipment (DME), mobile data terminals (MDTs), Electronic Engine Management System (EEMS), electronic/engine control units (ECUs), electronic/engine control modules (ECMs), embedded systems, microcontrollers, control modules, engine management systems (EMS), networked or “smart” appliances, machine-type communications (MTC) devices, machine-to-machine (M2M), Internet of Things (loT) devices, and/or the like.

[20] In some embodiments, any of the UEs 101 can comprise an loT UE, which may comprise a network access layer designed for low-power loT applications utilizing short-lived UE connections. An loT UE can utilize technologies such as M2M or MTC for exchanging data with an MTC server or device via a PLMN, Proximity-Based Service (ProSe) or device-to-device (D2D) communication, sensor networks, or loT networks. The M2M or MTC exchange of data may be a machine-initiated exchange of data. An loT network describes interconnecting loT UEs, which may include uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within the Internet infrastructure), with short-lived connections. The loT UEs may execute background applications (e.g., keep-alive messages, status updates, etc.) to facilitate the connections of the loT network.

[21] The UEs 101 may be configured to connect, for example, communicatively couple, with a RAN 110. In embodiments, the RAN 110 may be a next generation (NG) RAN or a 5 GRAN, an Evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), or a legacy RAN, such as a UTRAN (UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network) or GERAN (GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications or Groupe Special Mobile) EDGE (GSM Evolution) Radio Access Network). As used herein, the term “NG RAN” or the like may refer to a RAN 110 that operates in an NR or 5G system 100, and the term “E- UTRAN” or the like may refer to a RAN 110 that operates in an LTE or 4G system 100. The UEs 101 utilize connections (or channels) 103 and 104, respectively, each of which comprises a physical communications interface or layer (discussed in further detail below). As used herein, the term “channel” may refer to any transmission medium, either tangible or intangible, which is used to communicate data or a data stream. The term “channel” may be synonymous with and/or equivalent to “communications channel,” “data communications channel,” “transmission channel,” “data transmission channel,” “access channel,” “data access channel,” “link,” “data link,” “carrier,” “radio frequency carrier,” and/or any other like term denoting a pathway or medium through which data is communicated. Additionally, the term “link” may refer to a connection between two devices through a Radio Access Technology (RAT) for the purpose of transmitting and receiving information.

[22] In this example, the connections 103 and 104 are illustrated as an air interface to enable communicative coupling, and can be consistent with cellular communications protocols, such as a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) protocol, a code-division multiple access (CDMA) network protocol, a Push-to-Talk (PTT) protocol, a PTT over Cellular (POC) protocol, a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) protocol, a 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) protocol, a fifth generation (5G) protocol, a New Radio (NR) protocol, and/or any of the other communications protocols discussed herein. In embodiments, the UEs 101 may directly exchange communication data via a ProSe interface 105. The ProSe interface 105 may alternatively be referred to as a sidelink (SL) interface 105 and may comprise one or more logical channels, including but not limited to a Physical Sidelink Control Channel (PSCCH), a Physical Sidelink Shared Channel (PSSCH), a Physical Sidelink Discovery Channel (PSDCH), and a Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel (PSBCH).

[23] The UE 101b is shown to be configured to access an access point (AP) 106 (also referred to as also referred to as “WLAN node 106”, “WLAN 106”, “WLAN Termination 106” or “WT 106” or the like) via connection 107. The connection 107 can comprise a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, wherein the AP 106 would comprise a wireless fidelity (WiFi®) router. In this example, the AP 106 is shown to be connected to the Internet without connecting to the core network of the wireless system (described in further detail below). In various embodiments, the UE 101b, RAN 110, and AP 106 may be configured to utilize LTE-WLAN aggregation (LWA) operation and/or WLAN LTE/WLAN Radio Level Integration with IPsec Tunnel (LWIP) operation. The LWA operation may involve the UE 101b in RRC CONNECTED being configured by a RAN node 111 to utilize radio resources of LTE and WLAN. LWIP operation may involve the UE 101b using WLAN radio resources (e.g., connection 107) via Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) protocol tunneling to authenticate and encrypt packets (e.g., internet protocol (IP) packets) sent over the connection 107. IPsec tunneling may include encapsulating entirety of original IP packets and adding a new packet header thereby protecting the original header of the IP packets.

[24] The RAN 110 can include one or more RAN nodes Illa and 111b (collectively referred to as “RAN nodes 111” or “RAN node 111”) that enable the connections 103 and 104. As used herein, the terms “access node (AN),” “access point,” “RAN node”, or the like may describe equipment that provides the radio baseband functions for data and/or voice connectivity between a network and one or more users. These access nodes can be referred to as base stations (BS), next Generation NodeBs (gNBs), RAN nodes, evolved NodeBs (eNBs), NodeBs, Road Side Units (RSUs), Transmission Reception Points (TRxPs or TRPs), and so forth, and can comprise ground stations (e.g., terrestrial access points) or satellite stations providing coverage within a geographic area (e.g., a cell). As used herein, the term “NG RAN node” or the like may refer to a RAN node 111 that operates in an NR or 5G system 100 (for example a gNB), and the term “E-UTRAN node” or the like may refer to a RAN node 111 that operates in an LTE or 4G system 100 (e.g., an eNB). According to various embodiments, the RAN nodes 111 may be implemented as one or more of a dedicated physical device such as a macrocell base station, and/or a low power (LP) base station for providing femtocells, picocells or other like cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells.

[25] In some embodiments, all or parts of the RAN nodes 111 may be implemented as one or more software entities running on server computers as part of a virtual network, which may be referred to as a cloud radio access network (CRAN) and/or a virtual baseband unit pool (vBBUP). In these embodiments, the CRAN or vBBUP may implement a RAN function split, such as a PDCP split wherein RRC and PDCP layers are operated by the CRAN/vBBUP and other Layer 2 (L2) protocol entities are operated by individual RAN nodes 111; a MAC/PHY split wherein RRC, PDCP, RLC, and MAC layers are operated by the CRAN/vBBUP and the PHY layer is operated by individual RAN nodes 111; or a “lower PHY” split wherein RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC layers and upper portions of the PHY layer are operated by the CRAN/vBBUP and lower portions of the PHY layer are operated by individual RAN nodes 111. This virtualized framework allows the freed-up processor cores of the RAN nodes 111 to perform other virtualized applications. In some implementations, an individual RAN node 111 may represent individual gNB-DUs that are connected to a gNB-CU via individual Fl interfaces (not shown by Figure 1). In these implementations, the gNB-DUs may include one or more remote radio heads or radio front end modules (RFEMs), and the gNB-CU may be operated by a server that is located in the RAN 110 (not shown) or by a server pool in a similar manner as the CRAN/vBBUP. Additionally or alternatively, one or more of the RAN nodes 111 may be next generation eNBs (ng-eNBs), which are RAN nodes that provide E-UTRA user plane and control plane protocol terminations towards the UEs 101, and are connected to a 5GC via an NG interface.

[26] In V2X scenarios one or more of the RAN nodes 111 may be or act as RSUs. The term “Road Side Unit” or “RSU” may refer to any transportation infrastructure entity used for V2X communications. An RSU may be implemented in or by a suitable RAN node or a stationary (or relatively stationary) UE, where an RSU implemented in or by a UE may be referred to as a “UE- type RSU”, an RSU implemented in or by an eNB may be referred to as an “eNB-type RSU,” an RSU implemented in or by an gNB may be referred to as an “gNB-type RSU,” and the like. In one example, an RSU is a computing device coupled with radiofrequency circuitry located on a roadside that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs 101 (vUEs 101). The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry to store intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, as well as applications/software to sense and control on-going vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The RSU may operate on the 5.9 GHz Direct Short Range Communications (DSRC) band to provide very low latency communications required for high speed events, such as crash avoidance, traffic warnings, and the like. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may operate on the cellular V2X band to provide the aforementioned low latency communications, as well as other cellular communications services. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may operate as a WiFi hotspot (2.4 GHz band) and/or provide connectivity to one or more cellular networks to provide uplink and downlink communications. The computing device(s) and some or all of the radio frequency circuitry of the RSU may be packaged in a weatherproof enclosure suitable for outdoor installation, and may include a network interface controller to provide a wired (e.g., Ethernet) connection to a traffic signal controller and/or a backhaul network. [27] Any of the RAN nodes 111 can terminate the air interface protocol and can be the first point of contact for the UEs 101. In some embodiments, any of the RAN nodes 111 can fulfill various logical functions for the RAN 110 including, but not limited to, radio network controller (RNC) functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobility management.

[28] In embodiments, the UEs 101 can be configured to communicate using Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) communication signals with each other or with any of the RAN nodes 111 over a multicarrier communication channel in accordance various communication techniques, such as, but not limited to, an Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) communication technique (e.g., for downlink communications) or a Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) communication technique (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communications), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. The OFDM signals can comprise a plurality of orthogonal subcarriers.

[29] In some embodiments, a downlink resource grid can be used for downlink transmissions from any of the RAN nodes 111 to the UEs 101, while uplink transmissions can utilize similar techniques. The grid can be a time-frequency grid, called a resource grid or time-frequency resource grid, which is the physical resource in the downlink in each slot. Such a time -frequency plane representation is a common practice for OFDM systems, which makes it intuitive for radio resource allocation. Each column and each row of the resource grid corresponds to one OFDM symbol and one OFDM subcarrier, respectively. The duration of the resource grid in the time domain corresponds to one slot in a radio frame. The smallest time -frequency unit in a resource grid is denoted as a resource element. Each resource grid comprises a number of resource blocks, which describe the mapping of certain physical channels to resource elements. Each resource block comprises a collection of resource elements; in the frequency domain, this may represent the smallest quantity of resources that currently can be allocated. There are several different physical downlink channels that are conveyed using such resource blocks. [30] According to various embodiments, the UEs 101 and the RAN nodes 111 communicate (for example, transmit and receive) data over a licensed medium (also referred to as the “licensed spectrum” and/or the “licensed band”) and an unlicensed shared medium (also referred to as the “unlicensed spectrum” and/or the “unlicensed band”). The licensed spectrum may include channels that operate in the frequency range of approximately 400 MHz to approximately 3.8 GHz, whereas the unlicensed spectrum may include the 5 GHz band.

[31] To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, the UEs 101 and the RAN nodes 111 may operate using Licensed Assisted Access (LAA), enhanced LAA (eLAA), and/or further eLAA (feLAA) mechanisms. In these implementations, the UEs 101 and the RAN nodes 111 may perform one or more known medium-sensing operations and/or carrier-sensing operations in order to determine whether one or more channels in the unlicensed spectrum is unavailable or otherwise occupied prior to transmitting in the unlicensed spectrum. The medium/carrier sensing operations may be performed according to a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol.

[32] LBT is a mechanism whereby equipment (for example, UEs 101, RAN nodes 111, etc.) senses a medium (for example, a channel or carrier frequency) and transmits when the medium is sensed to be idle (or when a specific channel in the medium is sensed to be unoccupied). The medium sensing operation may include clear channel assessment (CCA), which utilizes at least energy detection (ED) to determine the presence or absence of other signals on a channel in order to determine if a channel is occupied or clear. This LBT mechanism allows cellular/LAA networks to coexist with incumbent systems in the unlicensed spectrum and with other LAA networks. ED may include sensing radio frequency (RF) energy across an intended transmission band for a period of time and comparing the sensed RF energy to a predefined or configured threshold.

[33] Typically, the incumbent systems in the 5 GHz band are WLANs based on IEEE 802.11 technologies. WLAN employs a contention-based channel access mechanism, called carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA). Here, when a WLAN node (e.g., a mobile station (MS) such as UE 101, AP 106, or the like) intends to transmit, the WLAN node may first perform CCA before transmission. Additionally, a backoff mechanism is used to avoid collisions in situations where more than one WLAN node senses the channel as idle and transmits at the same time. The backoff mechanism may be a counter that is drawn randomly within the contention window size (CWS), which is increased exponentially upon the occurrence of collision and reset to a minimum value when the transmission succeeds. The LBT mechanism designed for LAA is somewhat similar to the CSMA/CA ofWLAN. In some implementations, the LBT procedure for DL or UL transmission bursts including PDSCH or PUSCH transmissions, respectively, may have an LAA contention window that is variable in length between X and Y extended CCA (ECCA) slots, where X and Y are minimum and maximum values for the CWSs for LAA. In one example, the minimum CWS for an LAA transmission may be 9 microseconds (ps); however, the size of the CWS and a maximum channel occupancy time (MCOT) (for example, a transmission burst) may be based on governmental regulatory requirements.

[34] The LAA mechanisms are built upon carrier aggregation (CA) technologies ofLTE- Advanced systems. In CA, each aggregated carrier is referred to as a component carrier (CC). A CC may have a bandwidth of 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15 or 20 MHz and a maximum of five CCs can be aggregated, and therefore, a maximum aggregated bandwidth is 100 MHz. In Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) systems, the number of aggregated carriers can be different for DL and UL, where the number of UL CCs is equal to or lower than the number of DL component carriers. In some cases, individual CCs can have a different bandwidth than other CCs. In Time Division Duplexing (TDD) systems, the number of CCs as well as the bandwidths of each CC is usually the same for DL and UL.

[35] CA also comprises individual serving cells to provide individual CCs. The coverage of the serving cells may differ, for example, due to that CCs on different frequency bands will experience different pathloss. A primary service cell or primary cell (PCell) may provide a Primary CC (PCC) for both UL and DL, and may handle Radio Resource Control (RRC) and Non-Access Stratum (NAS) related activities. The other serving cells are referred to as secondary cells (SCells), and each SCell may provide an individual Secondary CC (SCC) for both UL and DL. The SCCs may be added and removed as required, while changing the PCC may require the UE 101 to undergo a handover. In LAA, eLAA, and feLAA, some or all of the SCells may operate in the unlicensed spectrum (referred to as “LAA SCells”), and the LAA SCells are assisted by a PCell operating in the licensed spectrum. When a UE is configured with more than one LAA SCell, the UE may receive UL grants on the configured LAA SCells indicating different Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) starting positions within a same subframe.

[36] The physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) may carry user data and higher-layer signaling to the UEs 101. The physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) may carry information about the transport format and resource allocations related to the PDSCH channel, among other things. It may also inform the UEs 101 about the transport format, resource allocation, and H-ARQ (Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request) information related to the uplink shared channel. Typically, downlink scheduling (assigning control and shared channel resource blocks to the UE 101b within a cell) may be performed at any of the RAN nodes 111 based on channel quality information fed back from any of the UEs 101. The downlink resource assignment information may be sent on the PDCCH used for (e.g., assigned to) each of the UEs 101.

[37] The PDCCH may use control channel elements (CCEs) to convey the control information. Before being mapped to resource elements, the PDCCH complex-valued symbols may first be organized into quadruplets, which may then be permuted using a sub-block interleaver for rate matching. Each PDCCH may be transmitted using one or more of these CCEs, where each CCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements known as resource element groups (REGs). Four Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) symbols may be mapped to each REG. The PDCCH can be transmitted using one or more CCEs, depending on the size of the downlink control information (DCI) and the channel condition. There can be four or more different PDCCH formats defined in LTE with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation level, L=l, 2, 4, or 8).

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

[39] The RAN nodes 111 may be configured to communicate with one another via interface 112. In embodiments where the system 100 is an LTE system, the interface 112 may be an X2 interface 112. The X2 interface may be defined between two or more RAN nodes 111 (e.g., two or more eNBs, and the like) that connect to EPC 120, and/or between two eNBs connecting to EPC 120. In some implementations, the X2 interface may include an X2 user plane interface (X2-U) and an X2 control plane interface (X2-C). The X2-U may provide flow control mechanisms for user data packets transferred over the X2 interface, and may be used to communicate information about the delivery of user data between eNBs. For example, the X2-U may provide specific sequence number information for user data transferred from a master eNB (MeNB) to a secondary eNB (SeNB); information about successful in sequence delivery of PDCP PDUs to a UE 101 from an SeNB for user data; information of PDCP PDUs that were not delivered to a UE 101; information about a current minimum desired buffer size at the SeNB for transmitting to the UE user data; and the like. The X2-C may provide intra-LTE access mobility functionality, including context transfers from source to target eNBs, user plane transport control, etc.; load management functionality; as well as inter-cell interference coordination functionality.

[40] In embodiments where the system 100 is a 5G or NR system, the interface 112 may be an Xn interface 112. The Xn interface is defined between two or more RAN nodes 111 (e.g., two or more gNBs and the like) that connect to 5GC 120, between a RAN node 111 (e.g., a gNB) connecting to 5GC 120 and an eNB, and/or between two eNBs connecting to 5GC 120. In some implementations, the Xn interface may include an Xn user plane (Xn-U) interface and an Xn control plane (Xn-C) interface. The Xn-U may provide non-guaranteed delivery of user plane PDUs and support/provide data forwarding and flow control functionality. The Xn-C may provide management and error handling functionality, functionality to manage the Xn-C interface; mobility support for UE 101 in a connected mode (e.g., CM-CONNECTED) including functionality to manage the UE mobility for connected mode between one or more RAN nodes 111. The mobility support may include context transfer from an old (source) serving RAN node 111 to new (target) serving RAN node 111; and control of user plane tunnels between old (source) serving RAN node 111 to new (target) serving RAN node 111. A protocol stack of the Xn-U may include a transport network layer built on Internet Protocol (IP) transport layer, and a GTP-U layer on top of a UDP and/or IP layer(s) to carry user plane PDUs. The Xn-C protocol stack may include an application layer signaling protocol (referred to as Xn Application Protocol (Xn-AP)) and a transport network layer that is built on SCTP The SCTP may be on top of an IP layer, and may provide the guaranteed delivery of application layer messages. In the transport IP layer point-to-point transmission is used to deliver the signaling PDUs. In other implementations, the Xn-U protocol stack and/or the Xn- C protocol stack may be same or similar to the user plane and/or control plane protocol stack(s) shown and described herein.

[41] The RAN 110 is shown to be communicatively coupled to a core network — in this embodiment, Core Network (CN) 120. The CN 120 may comprise a plurality of network elements 122, which are configured to offer various data and telecommunications services to customers/subscribers (e.g., users of UEs 101) who are connected to the CN 120 via the RAN 110. The term “network element” may describe a physical or virtualized equipment used to provide wired or wireless communication network services. The term “network element” may be considered synonymous to and/or referred to as a networked computer, networking hardware, network equipment, router, switch, hub, bridge, radio network controller, radio access network device, gateway, server, virtualized network function (VNF), network functions virtualization infrastructure (NFVI), and/or the like. The components of the CN 120 may be implemented in one physical node or separate physical nodes including components to read and execute instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium). In some embodiments, Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) may be utilized to virtualize any or all of the above described network node functions via executable instructions stored in one or more computer readable storage mediums (described in further detail below). A logical instantiation of the CN 120 may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instantiation of a portion of the CN 120 may be referred to as a network sub-slice. NFV architectures and infrastructures may be used to virtualize one or more network functions, alternatively performed by proprietary hardware, onto physical resources comprising a combination of industry-standard server hardware, storage hardware, or switches. In other words, NFV systems can be used to execute virtual or reconfigurable implementations of one or more EPC components/functions.

[42] Generally, the application server 130 may be an element offering applications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g., UMTS Packet Services (PS) domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). The application server 130 can also be configured to support one or more communication services (e.g., Voice-over-Intemet Protocol (VoIP) sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social networking services, etc.) for the UEs 101 via the EPC 120.

[43] In embodiments, the CN 120 may be a 5GC (referred to as “5GC 120” or the like), and the RAN 110 may be connected with the CN 120 via an NG interface 113. In embodiments, the NG interface 113 may be split into two parts, an NG user plane (NG-U) interface 114, which carries traffic data between the RAN nodes 111 and a user plane function (UPF), and the S 1 control plane (NG-C) interface 115, which is a signaling interface between the RAN nodes 111 and AMFs.

[44] In R4#104e, the side conditions for Positioning Reference Signal (PRS) measurements were agreed as below.

_

[45] In the disclosure, the side condition for PRS Es/Iot will be defined. Other aspects will also be described. In the disclosure, terms “Es/Iot” and “signal to noise and interference ratio (SINR)” are interchangeable.

[46] Fig. 2 illustrates a flowchart of a method 200 for positioning measurement in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. The method 200 may include operations 210 and 220.

[47] At 210, SINR associated with a PRS is determined.

[48] At 220, a positioning measurement is performed with a reduced number of samples at least partially based on the SINR. A side condition of SINR for the positioning measurement is OdB. For example, the higher SINR side condition for positioning measurement may be OdB.

[49] In some embodiments, the method 200 may include more or less or different operations, which is not limited in the disclosure.

[50] In some embodiments, the method 200 may be performed by the UE. In other embodiments, the method 200 may be performed by the gNB. The disclosure is not limited in the respect.

[51] In some embodiments, the positioning measurement may include PRS - reference signal received power (RSRP).

[52] Below, an example of PRS-RSRP absolute accuracy with reduced sample number is illustrated.

[53] Table 10.1.24.2.1-3 and Table 10.1.24.2.1-4 above may be added in 3GPP TS 38.133 V17.7.0 (2022-09) (3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network NR; Requirements for support of radio resource management (Release 17)) where the higher PRS Es/Iot is to be defined (TBD).

[54] From the above tables, the higher PRS Es/Iot (e.g., compared with -6dB) may be OdB for PRS-RSRP.

[55] In some embodiments, additionally or alternatively, an extra margin for accuracy requirement for PRS-RSRP with reduced sample number is configured or predefined. That is, when the PRS Es/Iot is OdB, the normal condition of the accuracy may be ± (3.5+extra margin) for FR1 and ± (5+extra margin) for FR2. For example, the extra margin for accuracy requirement is 0.5dB. The extra margin may be other values, which is not limited in the disclosure.

[56] In some embodiments, the positioning measurement may include UE receiving (Rx) - transmitting (Tx) time difference. [57] Below, an example of UE Rx-Tx time difference measurement accuracy with reduced sample number is illustrated.

[58] Table 10.1.25.2-la and Table 10.1.25.2-3a above may be added in 3GPP TS 38.133 V17.7.0 (2022-09) (3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network NR; Requirements for support of radio resource management (Release 17)) where the higher PRS Es/Iot is to be defined (TBD).

[59] From the above tables, the higher PRS Es/Iot (e.g., compared with -6dB) may be OdB for UE Rx-Tx time difference measurement.

[60] In some embodiments, the reduced number of samples includes one sample or four samples. However, in other embodiments, the reduced number of samples includes other number of samples, which is not limited in the disclosure.

[61] Fig. 3 illustrates a simulation diagram for performance of PRS-RSRP with -3dB SINR side condition and OdB SINR side condition in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. In the example of Fig. 3, the simulation is performed with additive white gaussian noise (AWGN), subcarrier spacing (SCS) =15kHz, combination factor=4, symbol number=4, repetition factor=l. When SINR side condition is -3dB or OdB, the performance with 1 measurement sample is worse than that with 4 samples about 0.5dB. The SINR increased may not completely immigrate the PRS-RSRP variance among these with 4 samples and 1 sample.

[62] Fig. 4 illustrates a simulation diagram for performance of UE Rx-Tx time difference with -3dB SINR side condition and OdB SINR side condition in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. In the example of Fig. 4, the simulation is performed with AWGN, SCS =15kHz, PRS bandwidth (BW) =52, repetition factor=l. As shown, for UE Rx-Tx time difference measurement, the performance with 1 measurement sample is closed to that with 4 samples.

[63] Fig. 5 illustrates a simulation diagram for performance of UE Rx-Tx time difference with -3dB SINR side condition and -6dB SINR side condition in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. In the example of Fig. 5, the simulation is performed with AWGN, SCS =30kHz, combination facto r=4, symbol number=4, repetition factor=l, PRS BW =48. As shown, for UE Rx-Tx time difference measurement, the performance with 1 measurement sample is closed to that with 4 samples.

[64] With the technical solutions of the disclosure, the higher SINR side condition is defined for the positioning measurement including PRS RSRP and UE Rx-Tx time difference measurement. In this way, the UE and the gNB may perform positioning measurement with reduced sample number.

[65] Fig. 6 schematically illustrates a wireless network 600 in accordance with various embodiments. The wireless network 600 may include a UE 602 in wireless communication with an AN 604. The UE 602 and AN 604 may be similar to, and substantially interchangeable with, like-named components described elsewhere herein.

[66] The UE 602 may be communicatively coupled with the AN 604 via connection 606. The connection 606 is illustrated as an air interface to enable communicative coupling, and can be consistent with cellular communications protocols such as an LTE protocol or a 5G NR protocol operating at mmWave or sub-6GHz frequencies.

[67] The UE 602 may include a host platform 608 coupled with a modem platform 610. The host platform 608 may include application processing circuitry 612, which may be coupled with protocol processing circuitry 614 of the modem platform 610. The application processing circuitry 612 may run various applications for the UE 602 that source/sink application data. The application processing circuitry 612 may further implement one or more layer operations to transmit/receive application datato/from a data network. These layer operations may include transport (for example UDP) and Internet (for example, IP) operations.

[68] The protocol processing circuitry 614 may implement one or more of layer operations to facilitate transmission or reception of data over the connection 606. The layer operations implemented by the protocol processing circuitry 614 may include, for example, MAC, RLC, PDCP, RRC and NAS operations.

[69] The modem platform 610 may further include digital baseband circuitry 616 that may implement one or more layer operations that are “below” layer operations performed by the protocol processing circuitry 614 in a network protocol stack. These operations may include, for example, PHY operations including one or more of HARQ-ACK functions, scrambling/descrambling, encoding/decoding, layer mapping/de-mapping, modulation symbol mapping, received symbol/bit metric determination, multi-antenna port precoding/decoding, which may include one or more of space-time, space-frequency or spatial coding, reference signal generation/detection, preamble sequence generation and/or decoding, synchronization sequence generation/detection, control channel signal blind decoding, and other related functions.

[70] The modem platform 610 may further include transmit circuitry 618, receive circuitry 620, RF circuitry 622, and RF front end (RFFE) 624, which may include or connect to one or more antenna panels 626. Briefly, the transmit circuitry 618 may include a digital -to-analog converter, mixer, intermediate frequency (IF) components, etc.; the receive circuitry 620 may include an analog-to-digital converter, mixer, IF components, etc.; the RF circuitry 622 may include a low- noise amplifier, a power amplifier, power tracking components, etc.; RFFE 624 may include filters (for example, surface/bulk acoustic wave filters), switches, antenna tuners, beamforming components (for example, phase-array antenna components), etc. The selection and arrangement of the components of the transmit circuitry 618, receive circuitry 620, RF circuitry 622, RFFE 624, and antenna panels 626 (referred generically as “transmit/receive components”) may be specific to details of a specific implementation such as, for example, whether communication is TDM or FDM, in mmWave or sub-6 gHz frequencies, etc. In some embodiments, the transmit/receive components may be arranged in multiple parallel transmit/receive chains, may be disposed in the same or different chips/modules, etc.

[71] In some embodiments, the protocol processing circuitry 614 may include one or more instances of control circuitry (not shown) to provide control functions for the transmit/receive components.

[72] A UE reception may be established by and via the antenna panels 626, RFFE 624, RF circuitry 622, receive circuitry 620, digital baseband circuitry 616, and protocol processing circuitry 614. In some embodiments, the antenna panels 626 may receive a transmission from the AN 604 by receive-beamforming signals received by a plurality of antennas/antenna elements of the one or more antenna panels 626.

[73] AUE transmission may be established by and via the protocol processing circuitry 614, digital baseband circuitry 616, transmit circuitry 618, RF circuitry 622, RFFE 624, and antenna panels 626. In some embodiments, the transmit components of the UE 604 may apply a spatial filter to the data to be transmitted to form a transmit beam emitted by the antenna elements of the antenna panels 626.

[74] Similar to the UE 602, the AN 604 may include a host platform 628 coupled with a modem platform 630. The host platform 628 may include application processing circuitry 632 coupled with protocol processing circuitry 634 of the modem platform 630. The modem platform may further include digital baseband circuitry 636, transmit circuitry 638, receive circuitry 640, RF circuitry 642, RFFE circuitry 644, and antenna panels 646. The components of the AN 604 may be similar to and substantially interchangeable with like-named components of the UE 602. In addition to performing data transmission/reception as described above, the components of the AN 608 may perform various logical functions that include, for example, RNC functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management, and data packet scheduling.

[75] Fig. 7 illustrates example components of a device 700 in accordance with some embodiments. In some embodiments, the device 700 may include application circuitry 702, baseband circuitry 704, Radio Frequency (RF) circuitry 706, front-end module (FEM) circuitry 708, one or more antennas 710, and power management circuitry (PMC) 712 coupled together at least as shown. The components of the illustrated device 700 may be included in a UE or an AN. In some embodiments, the device 700 may include less elements (e.g., an AN may not utilize application circuitry 702, and instead include a processor/controller to process IP data received from an EPC). In some embodiments, the device 700 may include additional elements such as, for example, memory/storage, display, camera, sensor, or input/output (I/O) interface. In other embodiments, the components described below may be included in more than one device (e.g., said circuitries may be separately included in more than one device for Cloud-RAN (C-RAN) implementations).

[76] The application circuitry 702 may include one or more application processors. For example, the application circuitry 702 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The processor(s) may include any combination of general -purpose processors and dedicated processors (e.g., graphics processors, application processors, etc.). The processors may be coupled with or may include memory/storage and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory/storage to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the device 700. In some embodiments, processors of application circuitry 702 may process IP data packets received from an EPC.

[77] The baseband circuitry 704 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The baseband circuitry 704 may include one or more baseband processors or control logic to process baseband signals received from a receive signal path of the RF circuitry 706 and to generate baseband signals for a transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 706. Baseband processing circuitry 704 may interface with the application circuitry 702 for generation and processing of the baseband signals and for controlling operations of the RF circuitry 706. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 704 may include a third generation (3G) baseband processor 704 A, a fourth generation (4G) baseband processor 704B, a fifth generation (5G) baseband processor 704C, or other baseband processor(s) 704D for other existing generations, generations in development or to be developed in the future (e.g., sixth generation (6G), etc.). The baseband circuitry 704 (e.g., one or more of baseband processors 704 A- D) may handle various radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuitry 706. In other embodiments, some or all of the functionality of baseband processors 704A-D may be included in modules stored in the memory 704G and executed via a Central Processing Unit (CPU) 704E. The radio control functions may include, but are not limited to, signal modulation/demodulation, encoding/decoding, radio frequency shifting, etc. In some embodiments, modulation/demodulation circuitry of the baseband circuitry 704 may include Fast-Fourier Transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping/demapping functionality. In some embodiments, encoding/decoding circuitry of the baseband circuitry 704 may include convolution, tail-biting convolution, turbo, Viterbi, or Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) encoder/decoder functionality. Embodiments of modulation/demodulation and encoder/decoder functionality are not limited to these examples and may include other suitable functionality in other embodiments.

[78] In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 704 may include one or more audio digital signal processor(s) (DSP) 704F. The audio DSP(s) 704F may include elements for compression/decompression and echo cancellation and may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments. Components of the baseband circuitry may be suitably combined in a single chip, a single chipset, or disposed on a same circuit board in some embodiments. In some embodiments, some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry 704 and the application circuitry 702 may be implemented together such as, for example, on a system on a chip (SOC).

[79] In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 704 may provide for communication compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 704 may support communication with an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (EUTRAN) or other wireless metropolitan area networks (WMAN), a wireless local area network (WLAN), a wireless personal area network (WPAN). Embodiments in which the baseband circuitry 704 is configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuitry.

[80] RF circuitry 706 may enable communication with wireless networks using modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. In various embodiments, the RF circuitry 706 may include switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate the communication with the wireless network. RF circuitry 706 may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 708 and provide baseband signals to the baseband circuitry 704. RF circuitry 706 may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry to up-convert baseband signals provided by the baseband circuitry 704 and provide RF output signals to the FEM circuitry 708 for transmission.

[81] In some embodiments, the receive signal path of the RF circuitry 706 may include mixer circuitry 706a, amplifier circuitry 706b and filter circuitry 706c. In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 706 may include filter circuitry 706c and mixer circuitry 706a. RF circuitry 706 may also include synthesizer circuitry 706d for synthesizing a frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 706a of the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 706a of the receive signal path may be configured to downconvert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 708 based on the synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuitry 706d. The amplifier circuitry 706b may be configured to amplify the down- converted signals and the filter circuitry 706c may be a low-pass filter (LPF) or bandpass filter (BPF) configured to remove unwanted signals from the down-converted signals to generate output baseband signals. Output baseband signals may be provided to the baseband circuitry 704 for further processing. In some embodiments, the output baseband signals may be zero-frequency baseband signals, although this is not a requirement. In some embodiments, mixer circuitry 706a of the receive signal path may comprise passive mixers, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[82] In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 706a of the transmit signal path may be configured to up-convert input baseband signals based on the synthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuitry 706d to generate RF output signals for the FEM circuitry 708. The baseband signals may be provided by the baseband circuitry 704 and may be filtered by filter circuitry 706c.

[83] In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 706a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 706a of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for quadrature downconversion and upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 706a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 706a of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for image rejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 706a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 706a of the transmit signal path may be arranged for direct downconversion and direct upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 706a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 706a of the transmit signal path may be configured for superheterodyne operation.

[84] In some embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signals may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternate embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signals may be digital baseband signals. In these alternate embodiments, the RF circuitry 706 may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry and the baseband circuitry 704 may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with the RF circuitry 706.

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

[86] In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 706d may be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N/N+l synthesizer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect as other types of frequency synthesizers may be suitable. For example, synthesizer circuitry 706d may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer comprising a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider.

[87] The synthesizer circuitry 706d may be configured to synthesize an output frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 706a of the RF circuitry 706 based on a frequency input and a divider control input. In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 706d may be a fractional N/N+l synthesizer.

[88] In some embodiments, frequency input may be provided by a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), although that is not a requirement. Divider control input may be provided by either the baseband circuitry 704 or the applications processor 702 depending on the desired output frequency. In some embodiments, a divider control input (e.g., N) may be determined from a lookup table based on a channel indicated by the applications processor 702.

[89] Synthesizer circuitry 706d of the RF circuitry 706 may include a divider, a delay-locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer and a phase accumulator. In some embodiments, the divider may be a dual modulus divider (DMD) and the phase accumulator may be a digital phase accumulator (DPA). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured to divide the input signal by either N or N+l (e.g., based on a carry out) to provide a fractional division ratio. In some example embodiments, the DLL may include a set of cascaded, tunable, delay elements, a phase detector, a charge pump and a D-type flip-flop. In these embodiments, the delay elements may be configured to break a VCO period up into Nd equal packets of phase, where Nd is the number of delay elements in the delay line. In this way, the DLL provides negative feedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle.

[90] In some embodiments, synthesizer circuitry 706d may be configured to generate a carrier frequency as the output frequency, while in other embodiments, the output frequency may be a multiple of the carrier frequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrier frequency) and used in conjunction with quadrature generator and divider circuitry to generate multiple signals at the carrier frequency with multiple different phases with respect to each other. In some embodiments, the output frequency may be a LO frequency (fLO). In some embodiments, the RF circuitry 706 may include an IQ/polar converter.

[91] FEM circuitry 708 may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from one or more antennas 710, amplify the received signals and provide the amplified versions of the received signals to the RF circuitry 706 for further processing. FEM circuitry 708 may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry configured to amplify signals for transmission provided by the RF circuitry 706 for transmission by one or more of the one or more antennas 710. In various embodiments, the amplification through the transmit or receive signal paths may be done solely in the RF circuitry 706, solely in the FEM 708, or in both the RF circuitry 706 and the FEM 708.

[92] In some embodiments, the FEM circuitry 708 may include a TX/RX switch to switch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The FEM circuitry may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the FEM circuitry may include an LNAto amplify received RF signals and provide the amplified received RF signals as an output (e.g., to the RF circuitry 706). The transmit signal path of the FEM circuitry 708 may include a power amplifier (PA) to amplify input RF signals (e.g., provided by RF circuitry 706), and one or more filters to generate RF signals for subsequent transmission (e.g., by one or more of the one or more antennas 710).

[93] In some embodiments, the PMC 712 may manage power provided to the baseband circuitry 704. In particular, the PMC 712 may control power-source selection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-to-DC conversion. The PMC 712 may often be included when the device 700 is capable of being powered by a battery, for example, when the device is included in a UE. The PMC 712 may increase the power conversion efficiency while providing desirable implementation size and heat dissipation characteristics.

[94] While Fig. 7 shows the PMC 712 coupled only with the baseband circuitry 704. However, in other embodiments, the PMC 712 may be additionally or alternatively coupled with, and perform similar power management operations for, other components such as, but not limited to, application circuitry 702, RF circuitry 706, or FEM 708.

[95] In some embodiments, the PMC 712 may control, or otherwise be part of, various power saving mechanisms of the device 700. For example, if the device 700 is in an RRC_Connected state, where it is still connected to the RAN node as it expects to receive traffic shortly, then it may enter a state known as Discontinuous Reception Mode (DRX) after a period of inactivity. During this state, the device 700 may power down for brief intervals of time and thus save power.

[96] If there is no data traffic activity for an extended period of time, then the device 700 may transition off to an RRC Idle state, where it disconnects from the network and does not perform operations such as channel quality feedback, handover, etc. The device 700 goes into a very low power state and it performs paging where again it periodically wakes up to listen to the network and then powers down again. The device 700 may not receive data in this state, in order to receive data, it may transition back to RRC Connected state.

[97] An additional power saving mode may allow a device to be unavailable to the network for periods longer than a paging interval (ranging from seconds to a few hours). During this time, the device is totally unreachable to the network and may power down completely. Any data sent during this time incurs a large delay and it is assumed the delay is acceptable.

[98] Processors of the application circuitry 702 and processors of the baseband circuitry 704 may be used to execute elements of one or more instances of a protocol stack. For example, processors of the baseband circuitry 704, alone or in combination, may be used execute Layer 3, Layer 2, or Layer 1 functionality, while processors of the application circuitry 704 may utilize data (e.g., packet data) received from these layers and further execute Layer 4 functionality (e.g., transmission communication protocol (TCP) and user datagram protocol (UDP) layers). As referred to herein, Layer 3 may comprise a RRC layer. As referred to herein, Layer 2 may comprise a medium access control (MAC) layer, a radio link control (RLC) layer, and a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer. As referred to herein, Layer 1 may comprise a physical (PHY) layer of a UE/RAN node.

[99] Fig. 8 illustrates an example of infrastructure equipment 800 in accordance with various embodiments. The infrastructure equipment 800 (or “system 800”) may be implemented as a client, a server, etc., such as the client and the server shown and described previously. In other examples, the system 800 could be implemented in or by a client, application server(s) 130, and/or any other element/device discussed herein. The system 800 may include one or more of application circuitry 805, baseband circuitry 810, one or more radio front end modules 815, memory 820, power management integrated circuitry (PMIC) 825, power tee circuitry 830, network controller 835, network interface connector 840, satellite positioning circuitry 845, and user interface 850. In some embodiments, the device 800 may include additional elements such as, for example, memory/storage, display, camera, sensor, or input/output (I/O) interface. In other embodiments, the components described below may be included in more than one device (e.g., said circuitries may be separately included in more than one device for some implementations).

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

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

[102] Application circuitry 805 may include one or more central processing unit (CPU) cores and one or more of cache memory, low drop-out voltage regulators (LDOs), interrupt controllers, serial interfaces such as SPI, I2C or universal programmable serial interface module, real time clock (RTC), timer-counters including interval and watchdog timers, general purpose input/output (I/O or IO), memory card controllers such as Secure Digital (SD/)MultiMediaCard (MMC) or similar, Universal Serial Bus (USB) interfaces, Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) interfaces and Joint Test Access Group (JTAG) test access ports. As examples, the application circuitry 805 may include one or more Intel Pentium®, Core®, or Xeon® processor(s); Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Ryzen® processor(s), Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), or Epyc® processors; and/or the like. In some embodiments, the system 800 may not utilize application circuitry 805, and instead may include a special-purpose processor/controller to process IP data received from an EPC or 5GC, for example.

[103] Additionally or alternatively, application circuitry 805 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more field-programmable devices (FPDs) such as field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and the like; programmable logic devices (PLDs) such as complex PLDs (CPLDs), high-capacity PLDs (HCPLDs), and the like; ASICs such as structured ASICs and the like; programmable SoCs (PSoCs); and the like. In such embodiments, the circuitry of application circuitry 805 may comprise logic blocks or logic fabric including other interconnected resources that may be programmed to perform various functions, such as the procedures, methods, functions, etc. of the various embodiments discussed herein. In such embodiments, the circuitry of application circuitry 805 may include memory cells (e.g., erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory (e.g., static random access memory (SRAM), anti-fuses, etc.)) used to store logic blocks, logic fabric, data, etc. in lookup-tables (LUTs) and the like.

[104] The baseband circuitry 810 may be implemented, for example, as a solder down substrate including one or more integrated circuits, a single packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board or a multi-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. Although not shown, baseband circuitry 810 may comprise one or more digital baseband systems, which may be coupled via an interconnect subsystem to a CPU subsystem, an audio subsystem, and an interface subsystem. The digital baseband subsystems may also be coupled to a digital baseband interface and a mixed-signal baseband subsystem via another interconnect subsystem. Each of the interconnect subsystems may include a bus system, point-to-point connections, network-on-chip (NOC) structures, and/or some other suitable bus or interconnect technology, such as those discussed herein. The audio subsystem may include digital signal processing circuitry, buffer memory, program memory, speech processing accelerator circuitry, data converter circuitry such as analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converter circuitry, analog circuitry including one or more of amplifiers and fdters, and/or other like components. In an aspect of the present disclosure, baseband circuitry 810 may include protocol processing circuitry with one or more instances of control circuitry (not shown) to provide control functions for the digital baseband circuitry and/or radio frequency circuitry (for example, the radio front end modules 815).

[105] User interface circuitry 850 may include one or more user interfaces designed to enable user interaction with the system 800 or peripheral component interfaces designed to enable peripheral component interaction with the system 800. User interfaces may include, but are not limited to, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), one or more indicators (e.g., light emitting diodes (LEDs)), a physical keyboard or keypad, a mouse, a touchpad, a touchscreen, speakers or other audio emitting devices, microphones, a printer, a scanner, a headset, a display screen or display device, etc. Peripheral component interfaces may include, but are not limited to, a non-volatile memory port, a universal serial bus (USB) port, an audio jack, a power supply interface, etc.

[106] The radio front end modules (RFEMs) 815 may comprise a millimeter wave RFEM and one or more sub-millimeter wave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In some implementations, the one or more sub-millimeter wave RFICs may be physically separated from the millimeter wave RFEM. The RFICs may include connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays, and the RFEM may be connected to multiple antennas. In alternative implementations, both millimeter wave and sub-millimeter wave radio functions may be implemented in the same physical radio front end module 815. The RFEMs 815 may incorporate both millimeter wave antennas and sub-millimeter wave antennas. [107] The memory circuitry 820 may include one or more of volatile memory including dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and/or synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), and nonvolatile memory (NVM) including high-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as Flash memory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), etc., and may incorporate the three- dimensional (3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memories from Intel® and Micron®. Memory circuitry 820 may be implemented as one or more of solder down packaged integrated circuits, socketed memory modules and plug-in memory cards.

[108] The PMIC 825 may include voltage regulators, surge protectors, power alarm detection circuitry, and one or more backup power sources such as a battery or capacitor. The power alarm detection circuitry may detect one or more of brown out (under- voltage) and surge (over-voltage) conditions. The power tee circuitry 830 may provide for electrical power drawn from a network cable to provide both power supply and data connectivity to the infrastructure equipment 800 using a single cable.

[109] The network controller circuitry 835 may provide connectivity to a network using a standard network interface protocol such as Ethernet, Ethernet over GRE Tunnels, Ethernet over Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), or some other suitable protocol. Network connectivity may be provided to/from the infrastructure equipment 800 via network interface connector 840 using a physical connection, which may be electrical (commonly referred to as a “copper interconnect”), optical, or wireless. The network controller circuitry 835 may include one or more dedicated processors and/or FPGAs to communicate using one or more of the aforementioned protocol. In some implementations, the network controller circuitry 835 may include multiple controllers to provide connectivity to other networks using the same or different protocols.

[110] The positioning circuitry 845 may include circuitry to receive and decode signals transmitted by one or more navigation satellite constellations of a global navigation satellite system (GNSS). Examples of navigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) may include United States’ Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia’s Global Navigation System (GLONASS), the European Union’s Galileo system, China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, a regional navigation system or GNSS augmentation system (e.g., Navigation with Indian Constellation (NAVIC), Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), France’s Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS), etc.), or the like. The positioning circuitry 845 may comprise various hardware elements (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, and the like to facilitate the communications over-the-air (OTA) communications) to communicate with components of a positioning network, such as navigation satellite constellation nodes.

[111] Nodes or satellites of the navigation satellite constellation(s) (“GNSS nodes”) may provide positioning services by continuously transmitting or broadcasting GNSS signals along a line of sight, which may be used by GNSS receivers (e.g., positioning circuitry 845 and/or positioning circuitry implemented by clients or the like) to determine their GNSS position. The GNSS signals may include a pseudorandom code (e.g., a sequence of ones and zeros) that is known to the GNSS receiver and a message that includes a time of transmission (ToT) of a code epoch (e.g., a defined point in the pseudorandom code sequence) and the GNSS node position at the ToT. The GNSS receivers may monitor/measure the GNSS signals transmitted/broadcasted by a plurality of GNSS nodes (e.g., four or more satellites) and solve various equations to determine a corresponding GNSS position (e.g., a spatial coordinate). The GNSS receivers also implement clocks that are typically less stable and less precise than the atomic clocks of the GNSS nodes, and the GNSS receivers may use the measured GNSS signals to determine the GNSS receivers’ deviation from true time (e.g., a beta-offset of the GNSS receiver clock relative to the GNSS node time). In some embodiments, the positioning circuitry 845 may include a Micro-Technology for Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (Micro-PNT) IC that uses a master timing clock to perform position tracking/estimation without GNSS assistance.

[112] The GNSS receivers may measure the time of arrivals (ToAs) of the GNSS signals from the plurality of GNSS nodes according to its own clock. The GNSS receivers may determine time of flight (ToF) values for each received GNSS signal from the ToAs and the ToTs, and then may determine, from the ToFs, a three-dimensional (3D) position and clock deviation. The 3D position may then be converted into a latitude, longitude and altitude. The positioning circuitry 845 may provide data to application circuitry 805, which may include one or more of position data or time data. Application circuitry 805 may use the time data to synchronize operations with other devices.

[113] The components shown by FIG. 8 may communicate with one another using interface circuitry. As used herein, the term “interface circuitry” may refer to, is part of, or includes circuitry providing for the exchange of information between two or more components or devices. The term “interface circuitry” may refer to one or more hardware interfaces, for example, buses, input/output (I/O) interfaces, peripheral component interfaces, network interface cards, and/or the like. Any suitable bus technology may be used in various implementations, which may include any number of technologies, including industry standard architecture (ISA), extended ISA (EISA), peripheral component interconnect (PCI), peripheral component interconnect extended (PCIx), PCI express (PCIe), or any number of other technologies. The bus may be a proprietary bus, for example, used in a SoC based system. Other bus systems may be included, such as an I2C interface, an SPI interface, point-to-point interfaces, and a power bus, among others.

[114] Fig. 9 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. Specifically, Fig. 9 shows a diagrammatic representation of hardware resources 900 including one or more processors (or processor cores) 910, one or more memory/storage devices 920, and one or more communication resources 930, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 940. For embodiments where node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor 902 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/ sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources 900. [115] The processors 910 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a digital signal processor (DSP) such as a baseband processor, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor, or any suitable combination thereof) may include, for example, a processor 912 and a processor 914.

[116] The memory/ storage devices 920 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory/storage devices 920 may include, but are not limited to any type of volatile or non-volatile memory such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random-access memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), Flash memory, solid-state storage, etc.

[117] The communication resources 930 may include interconnection or network interface components or other suitable devices to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 904 or one or more databases 906 via a network 908. For example, the communication resources 930 may include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via a Universal Serial Bus (USB)), cellular communication components, NFC components, Bluetooth® components (e.g., Bluetooth® Low Energy), Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components.

[118] Instructions 950 may comprise software, a program, an application, an applet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of the processors 910 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. The instructions 950 may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processors 910 (e.g., within the processor’s cache memory), the memory/storage devices 920, or any suitable combination thereof. Furthermore, any portion of the instructions 950 may be transferred to the hardware resources 900 from any combination of the peripheral devices 904 or the databases 906. Accordingly, the memory of processors 910, the memory/storage devices 920, the peripheral devices 904, and the databases 906 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

[119] Fig. 10 illustrates a network 1000 in accordance with various embodiments. The network 1000 may operate in a manner consistent with 3GPP technical specifications for LTE or 5G/NR systems. However, the example embodiments are not limited in this regard and the described embodiments may apply to other networks that benefit from the principles described herein, such as future 3 GPP systems, or the like.

[120] The network 1000 may include a UE 1002, which may include any mobile or non-mobile computing device designed to communicate with a RAN 1004 via an over-the-air connection. The UE 1002 may be, but is not limited to, a smartphone, tablet computer, wearable computer device, desktop computer, laptop computer, in-vehicle infotainment, in-car entertainment device, instrument cluster, head-up display device, onboard diagnostic device, dashtop mobile equipment, mobile data terminal, electronic engine management system, electronic/engine control unit, electronic/engine control module, embedded system, sensor, microcontroller, control module, engine management system, networked appliance, machine-type communication device, M2M or D2D device, loT device, etc.

[121 ] In some embodiments, the network 1000 may include a plurality of UEs coupled directly with one another via a sidelink interface. The UEs may be M2M/D2D devices that communicate using physical sidelink channels such as, but not limited to, PSBCH, PSDCH, PSSCH, PSCCH, PSFCH, etc.

[122] In some embodiments, the UE 1002 may additionally communicate with an AP 1006 via an over-the-air connection. The AP 1006 may manage a WLAN connection, which may serve to offload some/all network traffic from the RAN 1004. The connection between the UE 1002 and the AP 1006 may be consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, wherein the AP 1006 could be a wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi®) router. In some embodiments, the UE 1002, RAN 1004, and AP 1006 may utilize cellular- WLAN aggregation (for example, LWA/LWIP). Cellular- WLAN aggregation may involve the UE 1002 being configured by the RAN 1004 to utilize both cellular radio resources and WLAN resources.

[123] The RAN 1004 may include one or more access nodes, for example, AN 1008. AN 1008 may terminate air- interface protocols for the UE 1002 by providing access stratum protocols including RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC, and LI protocols. In this manner, the AN 1008 may enable data/voice connectivity between CN 1020 and the UE 1002. In some embodiments, the AN 1008 may be implemented in a discrete device or as one or more software entities running on server computers as part of, for example, a virtual network, which may be referred to as a CRAN or virtual baseband unit pool. The AN 1008 be referred to as a BS, gNB, RAN node, eNB, ng-eNB, NodeB, RSU, TRxP, TRP, etc. The AN 1008 may be a macrocell base station or a low power base station for providing femtocells, picocells or other like cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells.

[124] In embodiments in which the RAN 1004 includes a plurality of ANs, they may be coupled with one another via an X2 interface (if the RAN 1004 is an LTE RAN) or an Xn interface (if the RAN 1004 is a 5G RAN). The X2/Xn interfaces, which may be separated into control/user plane interfaces in some embodiments, may allow the ANs to communicate information related to handovers, data/context transfers, mobility, load management, interference coordination, etc.

[125] The ANs of the RAN 1004 may each manage one or more cells, cell groups, component carriers, etc. to provide the UE 1002 with an air interface for network access. The UE 1002 may be simultaneously connected with a plurality of cells provided by the same or different ANs of the RAN 1004. For example, the UE 1002 and RAN 1004 may use carrier aggregation to allow the UE 1002 to connect with a plurality of component carriers, each corresponding to a Pcell or Scell. In dual connectivity scenarios, a first AN may be a master node that provides an MCG and a second AN may be secondary node that provides an SCG The first/second ANs may be any combination of eNB, gNB, ng-eNB, etc.

[126] The RAN 1004 may provide the air interface over a licensed spectrum or an unlicensed spectrum. To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, the nodes may use LAA, eLAA, and/or feLAA mechanisms based on CA technology with PCells/Scells. Prior to accessing the unlicensed spectrum, the nodes may perform medium/carrier-sensing operations based on, for example, a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol.

[127] In V2X scenarios the UE 1002 or AN 1008 may be or act as a RSU, which may refer to any transportation infrastructure entity used for V2X communications. An RSU may be implemented in or by a suitable AN or a stationary (or relatively stationary) UE. An RSU implemented in or by: a UE may be referred to as a “UE-type RSU”; an eNB may be referred to as an “eNB-type RSU’; a gNB may be referred to as a “gNB-type RSU”; and the like. In one example, an RSU is a computing device coupled with radio frequency circuitry located on a roadside that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs. The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry to store intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, as well as applications/software to sense and control ongoing vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The RSU may provide very low latency communications required for high speed events, such as crash avoidance, traffic warnings, and the like. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may provide other cellular/WLAN communications services. The components of the RSU may be packaged in a weatherproof enclosure suitable for outdoor installation, and may include a network interface controller to provide a wired connection (e.g., Ethernet) to a traffic signal controller or a backhaul network.

[128] In some embodiments, the RAN 1004 may be anLTE RAN 1010 with eNBs, for example, eNB 1012. The LTE RAN 1010 may provide an LTE air interface with the following characteristics: SCS of 15 kHz; CP-OFDM waveform for DL and SC-FDMA waveform for UL; turbo codes for data and TBCC for control; etc. The LTE air interface may rely on CSI-RS for CSI acquisition and beam management; PDSCH/PDCCH DMRS for PDSCH/PDCCH demodulation; and CRS for cell search and initial acquisition, channel quality measurements, and channel estimation for coherent demodulation/detection at the UE. The LTE air interface may operating on sub-6 GHz bands.

[129] In some embodiments, the RAN 1004 may be an NG-RAN 1014 with gNBs, for example, gNB 1016, or ng-eNBs, for example, ng-eNB 1018. The gNB 1016 may connect with 5G-enabled UEs using a 5 G NR interface. The gNB 1016 may connect with a 5 G core through an NG interface, which may include an N2 interface or an N3 interface. The ng-eNB 1018 may also connect with the 5G core through an NG interface, but may connect with a UE via an LTE air interface. The gNB 1016 and the ng-eNB 1018 may connect with each other over an Xn interface.

[130] In some embodiments, the NG interface may be split into two parts, an NG user plane (NG-U) interface, which carries traffic data between the nodes of the NG-RAN 1014 and a UPF 1048 (e.g., N3 interface), and an NG control plane (NG-C) interface, which is a signaling interface between the nodes of the NG-RAN1014 and an AMF 1044 (e.g., N2 interface).

[131] The NG-RAN 1014 may provide a 5G-NR air interface with the following characteristics: variable SCS; CP-OFDM for DL, CP-OFDM and DFT-s-OFDM for UL; polar, repetition, simplex, and Reed-Muller codes for control and LDPC for data. The 5G-NR air interface may rely on CSI- RS, PDSCH/PDCCH DMRS similar to the LTE air interface. The 5G-NR air interface may not use a CRS, but may use PBCH DMRS for PBCH demodulation; PTRS for phase tracking for PDSCH; and tracking reference signal for time tracking. The 5G-NR air interface may operating on FR1 bands that include sub-6 GHz bands or FR2 bands that include bands from 24.25 GHz to 52.6 GHz. The 5G-NR air interface may include an SSB that is an area of a downlink resource grid that includes PSS/SSS/PBCH.

[132] In some embodiments, the 5G-NR air interface may utilize BWPs for various purposes. For example, BWP can be used for dynamic adaptation of the SCS. For example, the UE 1002 can be configured with multiple BWPs where each BWP configuration has a different SCS. When a BWP change is indicated to the UE 1002, the SCS of the transmission is changed as well. Another use case example of BWP is related to power saving. In particular, multiple BWPs can be configured for the UE 1002 with different amount of frequency resources (for example, PRBs) to support data transmission under different traffic loading scenarios. A BWP containing a smaller number of PRBs can be used for data transmission with small traffic load while allowing power saving at the UE 1002 and in some cases at the gNB 1016. ABWP containing a larger number of PRBs can be used for scenarios with higher traffic load.

[133] The RAN 1004 is communicatively coupled to CN 1020 that includes network elements to provide various functions to support data and telecommunications services to customers/subscribers (for example, users of UE 1002). The components of the CN 1020 may be implemented in one physical node or separate physical nodes. In some embodiments, NFV may be utilized to virtualize any or all of the functions provided by the network elements of the CN 1020 onto physical compute/storage resources in servers, switches, etc. A logical instantiation of the CN 1020 may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instantiation of a portion of the CN 1020 may be referred to as a network sub-slice.

[134] In some embodiments, the CN 1020 may be an LEE CN 1022, which may also be referred to as an EPC. The LTE CN 1022 may include MME 1024, SGW 1026, SGSN 1028, HSS 1030, PGW 1032, and PCRF 1034 coupled with one another over interfaces (or “reference points”) as shown. Functions of the elements of the LTE CN 1022 may be briefly introduced as follows.

[135] The MME 1024 may implement mobility management functions to track a current location of the UE 1002 to facilitate paging, bearer activation/deactivation, handovers, gateway selection, authentication, etc.

[136] The SGW 1026 may terminate an SI interface toward the RAN and route data packets between the RAN and the LTE CN 1022. The SGW 1026 may be a local mobility anchor point for inter-RAN node handovers and also may provide an anchor for inter-3 GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful intercept, charging, and some policy enforcement.

[137] The SGSN 1028 may track a location of the UE 1002 and perform security functions and access control. In addition, the SGSN 1028 may perform inter-EPC node signaling for mobility between different RAT networks; PDN and S-GW selection as specified by MME 1024; MME selection for handovers; etc. The S3 reference point between the MME 1024 and the SGSN 1028 may enable user and bearer information exchange for inter-3 GPP access network mobility in idle/active states.

[138] The HSS 1030 may include a database for network users, including subscription-related information to support the network entities’ handling of communication sessions. The HSS 1030 can provide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization, naming/addressing resolution, location dependencies, etc. An S6a reference point between the HSS 1030 and the MME 1024 may enable transfer of subscription and authentication data for authenticating/authorizing user access to the LTE CN 1020.

[139] The PGW 1032 may terminate an SGi interface toward a data network (DN) 1036 that may include an application/content server 1038. The PGW 1032 may route data packets between the LTE CN 1022 and the data network 1036. The PGW 1032 may be coupled with the SGW 1026 by an S 5 reference point to facilitate user plane tunneling and tunnel management. The PGW 1032 may further include a node for policy enforcement and charging data collection (for example, PCEF). Additionally, the SGi reference point between the PGW 1032 and the data network 10 36 may be an operator external public, a private PDN, or an intra-operator packet data network, for example, for provision of IMS services. The PGW 1032 may be coupled with a PCRF 1034 via a Gx reference point.

[140] The PCRF 1034 is the policy and charging control element of the LTE CN 1022. The PCRF 1034 may be communicatively coupled to the app/content server 1038 to determine appropriate QoS and charging parameters for service flows. The PCRF 1032 may provision associated rules into a PCEF (via Gx reference point) with appropriate TFT and QCI.

[141] In some embodiments, the CN 1020 may be a 5GC 1040. The 5GC 1040 may include an AUSF 1042, AMF 1044, SMF 1046, UPF 1048, NSSF 1050, NEF 1052, NRF 1054, PCF 1056, UDM 1058, and AF 1060 coupled with one another over interfaces (or “reference points”) as shown. Functions of the elements of the 5GC 1040 may be briefly introduced as follows.

[142] The AUSF 1042 may store data for authentication of UE 1002 and handle authentication-related functionality. The AUSF 1042 may facilitate a common authentication framework for various access types. In addition to communicating with other elements of the 5GC 1040 over reference points as shown, the AUSF 1042 may exhibit an Nausf service-based interface.

[143] The AMF 1044 may allow other functions of the 5GC 1040 to communicate with the UE 1002 and the RAN 1004 and to subscribe to notifications about mobility events with respect to the UE 1002. The AMF 1044 may be responsible for registration management (for example, for registering UE 1002), connection management, reachability management, mobility management, lawful interception of AMF-related events, and access authentication and authorization. The AMF 1044 may provide transport for SM messages between the UE 1002 and the SMF 1046, and act as a transparent proxy for routing SM messages. AMF 1044 may also provide transport for SMS messages between UE 1002 and an SMSF. AMF 1044 may interact with the AUSF 1042 and the UE 1002 to perform various security anchor and context management functions. Furthermore, AMF 1044 may be a termination point of a RAN CP interface, which may include or be an N2 reference point between the RAN 1004 and the AMF 1044; and the AMF 1044 may be a termination point of NAS (Nl) signaling, and perform NAS ciphering and integrity protection. AMF 1044 may also support NAS signaling with the UE 1002 over an N3 IWF interface.

[144] The SMF 1046 may be responsible for SM (for example, session establishment, tunnel management between UPF 1048 and AN 1008); UE IP address allocation and management (including optional authorization); selection and control of UP function; configuring traffic steering at UPF 1048 to route traffic to proper destination; termination of interfaces toward policy control functions; controlling part of policy enforcement, charging, and QoS; lawful intercept (for SM events and interface to LI system); termination of SM parts of NAS messages; downlink data notification; initiating AN specific SM information, sent via AMF 1044 over N2 to AN 1008; and determining SSC mode of a session. SMmay refer to management of a PDU session, and a PDU session or “session” may refer to a PDU connectivity service that provides or enables the exchange of PDUs between the UE 1002 and the data network 1036. [145] The UPF 1048 may act as an anchor point for intra-RAF and inter-RAT mobility, an external PDU session point of interconnect to data network 1036, and a branching point to support multi-homed PDU session. The UPF 1048 may also perform packet routing and forwarding, perform packet inspection, enforce the user plane part of policy rules, lawfully intercept packets (UP collection), perform traffic usage reporting, perform QoS handling for a user plane (e.g., packet filtering, gating, UL/DL rate enforcement), perform uplink traffic verification (e.g., SDF-to-QoS flow mapping), transport level packet marking in the uplink and downlink, and perform downlink packet buffering and downlink data notification triggering. UPF 1048 may include an uplink classifier to support routing traffic flows to a data network.

[146] The NSSF 1050 may select a set of network slice instances serving the UE 1002. The NSSF 1050 may also determine allowed NSSAI and the mapping to the subscribed S-NSSAIs, if needed. The NSSF 1050 may also determine the AMF set to be used to serve the UE 1002, or a list of candidate AMFs based on a suitable configuration and possibly by querying the NRF 1054. The selection of a set of network slice instances for the UE 1002 may be triggered by the AMF 1044 with which the UE 1002 is registered by interacting with the NSSF 1050, which may lead to a change of AMF. The NSSF 1050 may interact with the AMF 1044 via an N22 reference point; and may communicate with another NSSF in a visited network via an N31 reference point (not shown). Additionally, the NSSF 1050 may exhibit an Nnssf service-based interface.

[147] The NEF 1052 may securely expose services and capabilities provided by 3GPP network functions for third party, internal exposure/re-exposure, AFs (e.g., AF 1060), edge computing or fog computing systems, etc. In such embodiments, the NEF 1052 may authenticate, authorize, or throttle the AFs. NEF 1052 may also translate information exchanged with the AF 1060 and information exchanged with internal network functions. For example, the NEF 1052 may translate between an AF-Service-Identifier and an internal 5GC information. NEF 1052 may also receive information from other NFs based on exposed capabilities of other NFs. This information may be stored at the NEF 1052 as structured data, or at a data storage NF using standardized interfaces. The stored information can then be re-exposed by the NEF 1052 to other NFs and AFs, or used for other purposes such as analytics. Additionally, the NEF 1052 may exhibit an Nnef servicebased interface.

[148] The NRF 1054 may support service discovery functions, receive NF discovery requests from NF instances, and provide the information of the discovered NF instances to the NF instances. NRF 1054 also maintains information of available NF instances and their supported services. As used herein, the terms “instantiate,” “instantiation,” and the like may refer to the creation of an instance, and an “instance” may refer to a concrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during execution of program code. Additionally, the NRF 1054 may exhibit the Nnrf service-based interface.

[149] The PCF 1056 may provide policy rules to control plane functions to enforce them, and may also support unified policy framework to govern network behavior. The PCF 1056 may also implement a front end to access subscription information relevant for policy decisions in a UDR of the UDM 1058. In addition to communicating with functions over reference points as shown, the PCF 1056 exhibit an Npcf service-based interface.

[150] The UDM 1058 may handle subscription-related information to support the network entities’ handling of communication sessions, and may store subscription data of UE 1002. For example, subscription data may be communicated via an N8 reference point between the UDM 1058 and the AMF 1044. The UDM 1058 may include two parts, an application front end and a UDR. The UDR may store subscription data and policy data for the UDM 1058 and the PCF 1056, and/or structured data for exposure and application data (including PFDs for application detection, application request information for multiple UEs 1002) for the NEF 1052. The Nudr service-based interface may be exhibited by the UDR 221 to allow the UDM 1058, PCF 1056, and NEF 1052 to access a particular set of the stored data, as well as to read, update (e.g., add, modify), delete, and subscribe to notification of relevant data changes in the UDR. The UDM may include a UDM-FE, which is in charge of processing credentials, location management, subscription management and so on. Several different front ends may serve the same user in different transactions. The UDM- FE accesses subscription information stored in the UDR and performs authentication credential processing, user identification handling, access authorization, registration/mobility management, and subscription management. In addition to communicating with other NFs over reference points as shown, the UDM 1058 may exhibit the Nudm service-based interface.

[151] The AF 1060 may provide application influence on traffic routing, provide access to NEF, and interact with the policy framework for policy control.

[152] In some embodiments, the 5GC 1040 may enable edge computing by selecting operate r/3 rd party services to be geographically close to a point that the UE 1002 is attached to the network. This may reduce latency and load on the network. To provide edge-computing implementations, the 5GC 1040 may select a UPF 1048 close to the UE 1002 and execute traffic steering from the UPF 1048 to data network 1036 via the N6 interface. This may be based on the UE subscription data, UE location, and information provided by the AF 1060. In this way, the AF 1060 may influence UPF (re)selection and traffic routing. Based on operator deployment, when AF 1060 is considered to be a trusted entity, the network operator may permit AF 1060 to interact directly with relevant NFs. Additionally, the AF 1060 may exhibit an Naf service-based interface.

[153] The data network 1036 may represent various network operator services, Internet access, or third party services that may be provided by one or more servers including, for example, application/content server 1038.

[154] The following paragraphs describe examples of various embodiments.

[155] Example 1 includes an apparatus, comprising: memory; and processor circuitry coupled with the memory, wherein the processor circuitry is to: determine a signal to noise and interference ratio (SINR) associated with a positioning reference signal (PRS); and perform a positioning measurement with a reduced number of samples at least partially based on the SINR, wherein a side condition of SINR for the positioning measurement is OdB, and wherein the memory is to store the side condition.

[156] Example 2 includes the apparatus of Example 1, wherein the positioning measurement includes positioning reference signal (PRS) - reference signal received power (RSRP).

[157] Example 3 includes the apparatus of Example 1 or 2, wherein an extra margin for accuracy requirement for the PRS -RSRP is configured or predefined.

[158] Example 4 includes the apparatus of any of Examples 1 to 3, wherein the extra margin for accuracy requirement is 0.5dB.

[159] Example 5 includes the apparatus of any of Examples 1 to 4, wherein the positioning measurement includes user equipment (UE) receiving (Rx) - transmitting (Tx) time difference.

[160] Example 6 includes the apparatus of any of Examples 1 to 5, wherein the reduced number of samples includes one sample or four samples.

[161] Example 7 includes the apparatus of any of Examples 1 to 6, wherein the apparatus is a portion of a user equipment (UE).

[162] Example 8 includes the apparatus of any of Examples 1 to 7, wherein the apparatus is a portion of a next Generation NodeB (gNB).

[163] Example 9 includes a method, comprising: determining a signal to noise and interference ratio (SINR) associated with a positioning reference signal (PRS); and performing a positioning measurement with a reduced number of samples at least partially based on the SINR, wherein a side condition of SINR for the positioning measurement is OdB.

[164] Example 10 includes the method of Example 9, wherein the positioning measurement includes positioning reference signal (PRS) - reference signal received power (RSRP).

[165] Example 11 includes the method of Example 9 or 10, wherein an extra margin for accuracy requirement for the PRS -RSRP is configured or predefined.

[166] Example 12 includes the method of any of Examples 9 to 11, wherein the extra margin for accuracy requirement is 0.5dB.

[167] Example 13 includes the method of any of Examples 9 to 12, wherein the positioning measurement includes user equipment (UE) receiving (Rx) - transmitting (Tx) time difference.

[168] Example 14 includes the method of any of Examples 9 to 13, wherein the reduced number of samples includes one sample or four samples.

[169] Example 15 includes a computer- readable medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions when executed by processor circuitry cause the processor circuitry to: determine a signal to noise and interference ratio (SINR) associated with a positioning reference signal (PRS); and perform a positioning measurement with a reduced number of samples at least partially based on the SINR, wherein a side condition of SINR for the positioning measurement is OdB.

[170] Example 16 includes the computer-readable medium of Example 15, wherein the positioning measurement includes positioning reference signal (PRS) - reference signal received power (RSRP).

[171] Example 17 includes the computer-readable medium of Example 15 or 16, wherein an extra margin for accuracy requirement for the PRS -RSRP is configured or predefined.

[172] Example 18 includes the computer-readable medium of any of Examples 15 to 17, wherein the extra margin for accuracy requirement is 0.5dB.

[173] Example 19 includes the computer-readable medium of any of Examples 15 to 18, wherein the positioning measurement includes user equipment (UE) receiving (Rx) - transmitting (Tx) time difference.

[174] Example 20 includes the computer-readable medium of any of Examples 15 to 19, wherein the reduced number of samples includes one sample or four samples.

[175] Example 21 includes an apparatus comprising means for performing operations of any of methods of Examples 9 to 14.

[176] Example 22 includes an Access Node (AN) as shown and described in the description.

[177] Example 23 includes a method performed at an Access Node (AN) as shown and described in the description.

[178] Example 24 includes a User Equipment (UE) as shown and described in the description. [179] Example 25 includes a method performed at a User Equipment (UE) as shown and described in the description.

[180] Although certain embodiments have been illustrated and described herein for purposes of description, a wide variety of alternate and/or equivalent embodiments or implementations calculated to achieve the same purposes may be substituted for the embodiments shown and described without departing from the scope of the present disclosure. This application is intended to cover any adaptations or variations of the embodiments discussed herein. Therefore, it is manifestly intended that embodiments described herein be limited only by the appended claims and the equivalents thereof.

Claims

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus, comprising: memory; and processor circuitry coupled with the memory, wherein the processor circuitry is to: determine a signal to noise and interference ratio (SINR) associated with a positioning reference signal (PRS); and perform a positioning measurement with a reduced number of samples at least partially based on the SINR, wherein a side condition of SINR for the positioning measurement is OdB, and wherein the memory is to store the side condition.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the positioning measurement includes positioning reference signal (PRS) - reference signal received power (RSRP).

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein an extra margin for accuracy requirement for the PRS -RSRP is configured or predefined.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the extra margin for accuracy requirement is 0.5dB.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the positioning measurement includes user equipment (UE) receiving (Rx) - transmitting (Tx) time difference.

6. The apparatus of any of claims 1 to 5, wherein the reduced number of samples includes one sample or four samples.

7. The apparatus of any of claims 1 to 5, wherein the apparatus is a portion of a user equipment (UE).

8. The apparatus of any of claims 1 to 5, wherein the apparatus is a portion of a next Generation NodeB (gNB).

9. A method, comprising: determining a signal to noise and interference ratio (SINR) associated with a positioning reference signal (PRS); and performing a positioning measurement with a reduced number of samples at least partially based on the SINR, wherein a side condition of SINR for the positioning measurement is OdB.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the positioning measurement includes positioning reference signal (PRS) - reference signal received power (RSRP).

11. The method of claim 10, wherein an extra margin for accuracy requirement for the PRS -RSRP is configured or predefined.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the extra margin for accuracy requirement is 0.5dB.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the positioning measurement includes user equipment (UE) receiving (Rx) - transmitting (Tx) time difference.

14. The method of any of claims 9 to 13, wherein the reduced number of samples includes one sample or four samples.

15. A computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions when executed by processor circuitry cause the processor circuitry to : determine a signal to noise and interference ratio (SINR) associated with a positioning reference signal (PRS); and perform a positioning measurement with a reduced number of samples at least partially based on the SINR, wherein a side condition of SINR for the positioning measurement is OdB.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the positioning measurement includes positioning reference signal (PRS) - reference signal received power (RSRP).

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein an extra margin for accuracy requirement for the PRS-RSRP is configured or predefined.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the extra margin for accuracy requirement is 0.5dB.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the positioning measurement includes user equipment (UE) receiving (Rx) - transmitting (Tx) time difference.

20. The computer-readable medium of any of claims 15 to 19, wherein the reduced number of samples includes one sample or four samples.